


The Way We Win

by anneapocalypse



Series: Inroads [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Communication, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Lack of Communication, Past Relationship(s), Season/Series 13, Self-Hatred, Sex in a Car, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Vaginal Fingering, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:56:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 57,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: Agent Carolina's adventures in self-sabotage, and a relationship that might even work out despite her best efforts.Or, how they got to that shoulder-touch, and what happened after.





	1. Unknown Variables

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is preceded by three (much shorter) fics in the series, and you should definitely read those first, as they provide some important context.
> 
> I must again thank the wonderful misses-unicorn for giving me permission to use their [Kimball facecanon](https://misses-unicorn.tumblr.com/tagged/vanessa-kimball) in my fic. The idea of Kimball having scars from hostile wildlife is theirs as well.
> 
> Many thanks to [Akisawana](http://archiveofourown.org/users/akisawana) for beta reading. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> References past Carolina/Maine. Brief mentions of background Wash/Tucker.
> 
> All character deaths are canonical.
> 
>   
_I'm sick of losing soulmates_   
_so where do we begin?_   
_I can finally see you're as fucked up as me_   
_so how do we win?_   

> 
>   
-Dodie

Kimball spots that aqua armor motionless in the snow, and her heart does not stop, not quite.

After the disaster at Crash Site Alpha, it almost feels like it should.

Grif brings the bird down between the trees as best he can, as best anyone could, really—there’s no clearing in the dense pines and they can hear branches snapping against the hull on the final descent. Steam billows up before the windshield, obscures the tiny window in the back hatch, where the heat of the Pelican’s engines meets the snow.

There is still something about a winter-white landscape that puts Kimball on high alert. Snow means north, means high altitudes, means Federal strongholds in the mountains, Fed soldiers in their white armor, the bright glare of danger every rebel in desert drab well knows.

Even now, with the truce, it gets her blood up. And the mountains are no less perilous now—just with a different foe.

Tucker, Caboose, and Dr. Grey are clustered around Carolina, along with Donut, and someone else, someone in… purple armor? Same model as the Reds and Blues, but she’s too exhausted to figure out if she’s seen him before. Tucker seems occupied with keeping Caboose from interfering, while Grey is focused on Carolina. Epsilon’s blue hologram glows above her still form. It is him—his distress beacon—that has brought them here, broadcast over Aqua Squad’s TEAMCOM, the Red and Blue TEAMCOMs, and Kimball and Wash’s private channels.

Tucker, Caboose, and Dr. Grey have been on the ground searching for well over an hour—that she learned by radio—but the distress beacon only came active twenty minutes ago. Kimball’s team was already in the air with Grif at the helm, making their retreat, when the call came.

Carolina missing. The Key in the hands of the mercenaries.

If Kimball wasn’t so bone-tired to the point of numbness, she thinks she’d probably be sick.

Wash has been at her side since they got the call, peering through the hatch window, both of them sort of self-consciously keeping just enough distance not to block the other’s view. A strained courtesy that Kimball nonetheless appreciates from Wash. He’s a hard one to read—always in armor, rarely unhelmeted in public, even less than Carolina, though Kimball has seen him in the mess enough to know him by his face. His presence here at her side is a terse silence.

But when the hatch drops, Wash lurches forward before it touches the snow.

Wash makes all of Blue Team gathered around Carolina, and even Sarge and Simmons quickly follow.

“Stand back, please!” Dr. Grey chirps, in the deceptively cheerful tone Kimball has come to recognize as nothing less than a medical Command voice, and learned to obey quickly, because whatever else Emily Grey may be, she is no fool when it comes to medicine. Grey has her scanner out, green lights reflecting off the wet surface of Carolina's breastplate.

"I can help!" says the purple one.

"Do not let him help," Grif calls from the cockpit.

"Who is—"

“Gentlemen!" Dr. Grey says brusquely. "You can all help by giving me a team lift here.”

“Is it safe to move her?” Wash asks, hovering. His posture now radiates anxiety.

“Would I have said it if it wasn’t?” Grey retorts, a bit shortly.

“Right,” Wash says, and without another word moves into position by Carolina’s head.

“Caboose, you take her legs,” Tucker says, “but _don__’t_ move until Dr. Grey says.”

“No moving,” says Caboose.

“Until Dr. Grey says.”

“Until Dr. Grey says… what?”

“Caboose, go get in the back of the Pelican and wait for us there.”

“Okay!” says Caboose and trots off.

“Is she going to be all right?” Kimball asks desperately, unable to restrain herself any longer.

“Oh, sweetie,” Dr. Grey says, eyes never leaving her medical scanner. “I’m a genius, not a psychic! That depends on a whole variety of factors outside my knowledge or control! Why, any of us might die tomorrow!”

She will not take a swing at the Fed doctor. Today is not the day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Kimball isn’t psychic either.

“Her vitals are strong,” Grey continues blithely, “and I don’t see any signs of spinal injury. That’s about as much as I can tell you without more equipment, which is _why_ we need to get her back to base as quickly as possible!”

“Watch her head,” Epsilon says tensely. “Be careful.”

“I’ve got her,” Wash says.

Kimball’s hands flail helplessly. “Can I—”

But she isn’t needed. The Reds, Tucker, and Wash have Carolina up and shuttled in the back hatch and laid flat on the floor, at which point Grey cheerfully orders everyone out of her way again. Donut hops into the copilot spot and the rest of them grab crash seats—Kimball remains standing—and with a roar of thrusters they lift off again through the trees.

There’s something strange and terrible about being surrounded by the Reds and Blues in near total silence.

It’s a long flight back to Armonia. Too long. Long enough for Kimball to tie herself in knots.

Nothing good waits for her back in Armonia. The survivors of Crash Site Alpha, with no time to mourn their losses, because they have to re-mobilize immediately, because things are only going to get worse from here, because Doyle—

_Doyle._

The thought of another strategy meeting, _now_, after all of this—it just makes her want to start screaming.

Grif lands them on the roof of Armonia General, and Grey sends Tucker inside for a gurney. At least the elevators are running.

She should be following her. Should be at Carolina’s side while Grey wheels her off, Epsilon’s agitated light still hovering over her silent form. Should be there when Carolina wakes up.

But she has to be there for her people, first. And Carolina…

Carolina might not want her there anyway.

Kimball feels a nudge at her shoulder, and realizes she’s blocking the hatch.

“She’s going to be okay,” Wash says.

Kimball feels frozen. She feels too exhausted to move, too exhausted to even form the words she should be saying.

“Kimball,” Wash says, looking her square in the eyes—well, in the visor. “She will be. It’s Carolina. She’ll be all right. Grey will take care of her.”

She can’t even force out a “Thank you,” as Grif lifts off the roof and pilots back to base. Kimball feels utterly drained, like her body might just collapse on the floor of the Pelican. When she thinks of Carolina fallen motionless in the snow, her stomach feels hollow. When she thinks of the dead at Alpha, all the bodies they had to leave behind—

she feels about to cave in, the hollowness becoming a sucking vacuum, trying to collapse her in on herself like a dying star.

The walk from the roof of the Command Center to the war room isn’t long enough. Kimball can’t remember the last time she felt this heavy. Not even downtown the day of their assault on Armonia, with Doyle in her sights, when Felix’s voice came over the radio, broadcast to everyone on the planet.

Times like this, it’d really be nice to be able to collapse in an uncontrollable sobbing heap on the floor. Be nice to have a place to do that. But she does not have that luxury. She is Vanessa Kimball, General of the New Republic and… whatever she and Doyle are, of the United Chorus. She doesn’t think they’ve earned the title of _co-leaders._ That implies a level of cooperation they’ve yet to reach.

Maybe she could’ve done better. Offered more compromise. Damned if she can figure out where.

She veers off to the nearest restroom, mumbling something to Wash about getting some water. The clip Wash is keeping at her side on the way to the war room, she’s genuinely nervous he’s not going to let her out of his sight, and she understands why. Time is of the essence now, and she’s clearly a mess. But after an appraising look, Wash nods, and goes on without her.

Kimball ducks into the washroom and takes off her helmet, avoiding her own haggard reflection to bend over the sink and splash cold water on her face. The smell of it is sharp, mineral, metallic when she licks her lips.

Her stomach heaves, once, but she hasn’t eaten anything in many hours.

Kimball cups her hands under the faucet and takes a long, slow drink.

She straightens up again, shakes off her hands. Puts her back to the wall and leans for a moment, letting just a bit of the weight off.

_Vanessa Justine Kimball, what do you fight for?_

_For a better tomorrow._

_That’s worth it, even if—_

She bites off the rest in her mind. No negative mantras today. She can’t afford it. She’s on the edge of collapse already.

_What do you fight for?_

Sometimes she goes through names of the dead. There are too many for one sitting, have been for years, but she whispers through them anyway when she sits, passing them like beads on a string. _For Mom, for Sayuri, for Lene, for Olive, for Carter, for Jasmine, for Shea, for Deidre, for__…_

This is not a day to name the dead. Not with so many more lost at Alpha. She can hope there will be time for that later. Maybe even time to visit the ruins of the old Buddhist temple and offer prayers.

That in itself is something to fight for.

_To honor the dead. For a moment of peace._

She controls her breathing. She doesn’t count, but feels the rhythm of it behind her ribcage, filling her body, saying _life._

_What do you fight for?_

_For Matthews, Ghanoush, Rivas, Velasquez, Bitters, Jensen, Palomo, Andersmith, Turner, Cody, Mukerjea, Dawes, Liu, Marri, _and the names march on.

For her people. For Chorus.

And for Carolina, too. For Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Donut, Sarge, Wash. Because this is, inexorably now, their fight. Because they’ve chosen to stay and fight too, to make it theirs, and there is no more escaping for them than for anyone else. So Chorus's fate is now their fate, too.

She breathes.

_For a better tomorrow._

She steels herself, pushes off the wall and heads for the war room.

It all happened because they split up. In hindsight, Vanessa can see that. In hindsight, she can see a lot of things.

What she can’t see is how she could’ve stopped it, all of it, from happening.

The weeks leading up to this have been a strain, to say the least. Certainly there have been bright spots, not least the successes of Carolina’s Aqua Squad in the field, taking Charon bases and retrieving Freelancer technology—the armor enhancements Carolina eagerly installs in her armor and practices with Epsilon at every opportunity.

She’s nearly always with Epsilon, these days. Spending so much time in the field, she needs him to run her growing number of armor enhancements. But it’s more than that, of course. There’s a bond between them. Epsilon calls her _Sis_. Vanessa doesn’t know the whole story behind that. Only that Epsilon is one of the AI from Project Freelancer, the last of them, and has some kind of history with Wash that no one talks about. That the program's Director was a Dr. Church, Kimball had assumed was related to Epsilon in some way, but no one had explained it further. She knows the Reds and Blues and the two Freelancers in particular were involved in getting the program shut down, somehow—in “bringing Dr. Church to justice,” the article said, though it was vague on the details.

Still vague on a lot of details.

Not that she hadn't been… seeing Carolina. She’d been seeing plenty of her. Every time Aqua Squad checked in, they’d take the night. And damned if Carolina didn’t know how to make the most of a night.

Carolina was… a _force_, in bed. Dominant for sure, and Vanessa couldn’t say she minded. It was nice, actually, not to be in charge for once. Nice to be held down, not have to think quite so much. No decisions to make, no compromises, and god the number of times Carolina was willing to make her come in a night, before Vanessa had to tap out, panting and trembling.

Carolina never stayed long enough to fall asleep, though Vanessa invited her too.

She wondered sometimes if Carolina even slept, those nights, or if she got up and went looking, whether she’d find Carolina in the training room, running suicide sprints with Epsilon.

Couldn’t blame her if she was. Everyone’s been running on all cylinders. Right on up to the Generals.

One of the hardest things about leadership is getting less and less time to yourself where you aren’t working in one way or another. But almost worse, sometimes, is how hard it becomes to get anything done when you _are _working, because every task is interrupted by another.

Her position in post-truce Armonia was no exception, and in some ways the worst of all worlds.

The interruptions were a near-constant parade. Squads reporting in, disputes that needed settling from on high, conflicting orders from officers of commensurate rank, supply issues, complaints about rations or quarters or requisitions, unanticipated decisions and rules that needed making, the long tedious process of carving order out of chaos.

A process which, depending on the day, might involve putting one of her own Captains on dish duty for insubordination. In front of Doyle, no less. She would’ve bet a stack of Chorus's worthless pre-war currency that this would be all over base by lunchtime, and that somehow, someone would manage to start a fistfight over it in the mess hall. And she would've won that bet.

Captain Grif had his strengths as a leader, more than most would be willing to admit, least of all himself—but in that moment Kimball was having a hell of a time remembering what those strengths were.

Even while wearing a helmet, Doyle still managed to look smug.

Kimball sighed. “Can we just… talk about something else for a minute?” Anything else. If she had to spend one more _second _arguing about whether or not automatic weapons were more efficient than single-shot with a man she was unconvinced had ever fired a weapon in his life, she was going to lose her mind. Maybe Simmons and Lopez could "misplace" a stockpile of automatic rifles, if it came to that. It might be tight, certainly, but she'd looked over the spreadsheets that morning; they had enough BRs and pistols to go around. Anti-material rifles too, though if the Feds did indeed have a preference for spray-and-pray tactics as Doyle had given her to understand, she had reason to doubt their efficacy at long range.

That was underhanded, she knew, and probably should be kept to a last resort. Compromise, as Wash kept saying, you both have to be willing to compromise for this to work. But when compromising meant actively worsening their readiness, that was _lives_ being compromised, and for no good reason. They were going to need every bullet and every _soldier _they had.

So yes, she was having some difficulty with _compromise _in this particular case.

“_Well_,” Doyle said haughtily, “the reason I _originally_ came to speak with you was to inform you of the status of our men’s most recent assault.”

At least he'd said _our. _“Wait, they radioed in? What happened?”

“Well…”

“And why didn’t you call me?” She felt a wild, irrational surge of frustration. “I should have been there!”

“Well, I’m sure _I_ didn’t know where you were—”

“If I wasn’t with you, I was in my office, or the training room, where _else_ would I be—”

“Well, far be it from me to interrupt your _training_—”

What would you even know about training, she felt like snapping, remembering his shaky-handed grip on his rifle that day they met downtown, the day they almost killed each other. It was hard to picture Doyle in combat at all, never mind on the front lines, leading an all-out assault, shouting orders in the fray of heat and blood and smoke.

How differently she’d imagined him.

Kimball took a deep breath. Pick your battles and so forth. “Just tell me what they said.”

“Captain Tucker and the Colonel report another successful assault. This time on a base in close proximity to one of the towers. They were quite, ah… _enthusiastic _about their victory.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“Just that they were still searching the facility, and to expect a more detailed report. It seems Charon may have been studying the tower itself.”

Kimball nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll be interested to learn more about that.”

“Indeed.” Doyle nodded in agreement, their arguments momentarily forgotten.

Her COM pad pinged on her way to the mess, and Vanessa found herself relieved to see Carolina’s aqua helmet when she answered on vidCOM. Epsilon, as usual, glowed blue at her shoulder.

“Agent,” Kimball greeted her, mindful of their audience. “Doyle told me you took another base this morning.”

“Not _just_ a base. The research facilities are much more extensive, we’ve found new equipment—but more importantly, we’re close to one of those alien towers. There’s no telling what we might find over there.”

“So your next stop is the tower?”

“Actually, I’d like to consult with Dr. Grey—maybe even have her join us in the field, if she’s up for it and you can spare her at the capital.”

“And you believe Charon may be using the towers in their research?”

“Is _everybody _on this planet just _super blase_ about these things?” Epsilon interjected. Carolina snorted.

“We can’t be sure _what _they were doing,” she continued, ignoring Epsilon. “That’s why I’d like to get Grey’s opinion, before we explore further.”

“I’ll have her radio you for the details,” Kimball said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to help.”

“Happy” did not quite describe the sound that broke forth from Doctor Emily Grey when called to consult with Agent Carolina.

Her assent came accompanied by a stream of enthusiastic information-dumping Kimball frankly couldn't quite follow but which by rights should have had the doctor passing out cold from lack of oxygen. Kimball took a deep breath and tried to listen for a gap to get a word in edgewise. "Doctor."

"—still don't know for certain what triggered the phenomenon, whether the towers' emergence was triggered by human tampering and abandoning UNSC-imposed safety protocols when they pulled out, or by a critical population mass, or even natural phenomena, there are theories of course but—"

_"Doctor,"_ Kimball said, with mild desperation.

Dr. Grey completed her sentence with breathless enthusiasm, before chirping, "_Yes,_ General."

At least _that_ was a step up from Doyle.

"If you need assistance, you can take Captains Grif and Simmons," Kimball said. "Donut and Lopez can hold the Armory together." She thought. Admittedly, she didn't know Donut well, and his presence was, well, a lot. But he seemed personable enough, and organized, even if his methods were somewhat unconventional. As for Lopez, his Spanish was a bit broken, but he seemed to know his way around anything mechanical. "We can spare a teleportation cube to get you there, and you can fly back with Aqua Squad."

"Magnificent!" Dr. Grey exclaimed. "Using alien technology to travel out to study bigger and _better _alien technology! Appropriate, don't you think?"

"I—yes," Kimball said, hoping to wrap up this conversation and move things along. "Highly appropriate. Why don't you head right on over to the Armory, then."

She let out a quiet breath of relief when Grey headed off, and yet Kimball couldn't help looking after her for a moment with what felt like envy. It would have been nice to get off base, just for a little while—get some fresh air, get out of the city, do something that wasn’t strategizing and _compromising_ and gritting her teeth and holding her tongue to keep the peace. And as much as the doctor was a lot to handle, a part of Kimball felt she really _should_ get to know her better, and what better way than to see her working in the field, her own element.

But it was the thought of seeing Carolina at work that really pulled at her. For all Carolina had accomplished in her few weeks as Aqua Squad leader, Kimball had never had the chance to work with her directly. Never had the chance to see _how _Carolina worked. Just radio calls and mission reports, and always Epsilon at her side. A field trip working at her side would have been nice. But Kimball was needed at the capital.

You could always tell when it was a New Republic day on kitchen duty. Every dish was fiery. The rebels saw some hard times in these last few years of the war, and near everyone took to adding flavor to flavorless rations with copious amounts of hot sauce, something that never quite seemed to run dry on Chorus even at the height of the conflict. Every so often a raiding party would find an untouched fueling station or remote convenience store, long abandoned, and clean out its shelves, and they'd have a feast on base.

The Korean army base stew had long been a favorite among the New Republic. Traditionally, it was a savory, salty, spicy concoction of fish broth and whatever assortment of vegetables, tinned meats and dried noodles you happened to have lying around on base. Emphasis on "whatever you had," which became something of a theme in the New Republic.

The truce certainly afforded them access to more ingredients if not necessarily better ones. The Feds' reserves, though modest (if Kimball didn't know better, she'd have been certain they were holding out), offered a different selection than the New Republic and made for some fresh combinations. That day's budae jjigae featured an abundance of shredded cabbage and native root vegetables, along with assorted processed meats and at least three types of noodles, all swimming in a broth brilliant red with gochujang.

Diplomatically, Kimball had suggested to her troops that they might prepare a milder version for the Feds, many of whom complained loudly and frequently about the rebels' aggressively spicy food. Kimball can't imagine the mild version of the stew would be nearly as good, but she grew up with spicy food and her tolerance only grew during the war.

She dished up a slab of canned ham product drenched in spicy broth, and the taste of salt and chilis warmed her tongue. Vegetarianism was something else she lost in the war. Lasted about a year. Right up until food supplies started to get tighter, and she had to weigh the cost to her unit of always being the problem soldier demanding a meatless meal. There were people with real, medical dietary restrictions serving in the New Republic army, and every bit of food they had was tightly rationed. Eventually Kimball just couldn’t justify being voluntarily choosy anymore, and tasted her first tin of salty processed meat product. Had to admit, she'd developed a taste for it over the years. This stew, especially, had become something of a comfort food.

Savoring the burn on her tongue, Kimball did not see the fight breaking out until Wash was already beating feet across the mess to grab two armored soldiers by the breastplates and haul them apart. Orville was Kimball's, a lance corporal from Orange Team. She didn't know the Fed's name or rank. Lieutenant Bitters was noticeably not intervening, instead looking on with bored disdain—for both parties, probably. Bitters was a more motivated man than most gave him credit for, but brawling to him was "a waste of a good punch," as he put it.

"Knock it off," Wash said sternly, giving both soldiers a good shake. He was helmetless, having already started eating, and his bottle-blond hair lay flattened against his skull, dark roots showing at his hairline. Ordinarily Wash had a tendency to look smaller than he was, carrying himself as he did in a sort of brusquely unassuming posture. Kimball was reminded, in that moment, that Wash was nearly six feet and capable of looking quite imposing when he wanted to. "Both of you, clear your chow and get your asses to the training floor. Five laps. Each."

"He started it!" Orville protested.

"Ten laps," said Wash.

"Come on!" the Fed whined.

"I don't care who started it," Wash said, and with a final shake released both. "No brawling in the mess hall. Ten laps each," he added, raising his voice, "and the rest of your platoons will be joining you."

Groans erupted across the mess.

Kimball could swear she saw a hint of a smile cross Wash's face before he returned to his seat.

_I don't care who started it_ had been something of a theme with Agent Washington.

It seemed a bit ungenerous to criticize his approach, when he'd done so much for them. Thanks to Washington, Kimball had been mostly relieved of the responsibility of overseeing training, and that was a boon for which she was grateful. Wash made an excellent drill instructor, better than Kimball ever was. Troops snapped to attention at the sound of his command voice in the same way they did at Carolina’s. She'd seen Feds call attention on deck when Wash entered the training room, even though Wash held no official rank in either army. Kimball wondered sometimes about the impression Wash must’ve made on the troops during his time being held by the Feds—which Doyle insisted was protective custody, nothing more.

Wash took a no-nonsense approach to troop discipline. Fail a training exercise—run laps. Insubordination—run laps. Brawling, bickering, or otherwise disrupting the daily routine—run laps, and the whole platoon runs with you.

It seemed to work inside the training room. Outside of it, Kimball had some doubts as to the efficacy of Wash’s technique. No amount of laps seemed to deter the fistfights, never mind the muttering and distrust and the insults and verbal jabs that felt near-constant. No one liked running laps, it was true. Out of earshot of Wash, though, she'd seen soldiers pat the offenders on the back, even cheer them on for taking one for the team. Kimball wondered if it hadn’t had the opposite effect—making it a point of pride to have taken a swing at one of the opposing army.

They weren’t supposed to _be_ opposing anymore. But she couldn’t deny how hard it was to feel that, even for her.

“What _was_ her rank, anyway?” Major General Marri asked her, halfway into a bowl of budae jjigae. “Before the Freelancer Project.”

Kimball paused, chewing through a mouthful of noodles while she thought of how to respond. She swallowed, and said carefully, “She’s never said.”

Marri stirred their stew with chopsticks. “That doesn’t seem strange to you?”

“I don’t think her military career has been particularly… orthodox.”

Marri nodded. “I guess not.”

It was a neutral enough comment. It made Kimball feel uneasy anyway. Not because she hadn't thought of it, but because a part of her was waiting for Marri to ask her what else she didn't know about Carolina. And that wasn't a conversation Kimball was eager to have.

But Marri didn’t ask, just dove back into their stew, and Kimball set to hers with renewed vigor.

"General Kimball, ma'am. Major General."

Kimball hastily slurped her mouthful of noodles, and swallowed. Marri too gave a nod. "At ease, soldier. Sergeant."

"Thank you." McCallister shifted to parade rest, helmet cam aimed at Kimball and her second, while Ghanoush did a slow turn panning across the mess hall. For the moment, it was relatively peaceful. Kimball found herself rather hoping Ghanoush hadn't been recording for the live feed when the fight broke out.

"Got a word for NRN today?" Ghanoush said, his gaze returning to the table.

McCallister and Ghanoush had been running their news feed for some months back in the old canyon—really, ever since Vijaya and Watkins had their unfortunate run-in with a land mine. A strictly unofficial position; Ghanoush was a staff sergeant, McCallister a communications specialist. But the chatternet feed was good for morale, and a good way to keep the troops abreast of non-sensitive information.

It would be good, she thought, to form some sort of collaboration with the Feds and whatever news feed they had set up. Kimball supposed they weren't quite there yet.

Another bite of stew bought her a moment to consider how much to share. There was a strict policy never to report troop positions over chatternet, of course, and only to discuss the details of missions over their encrypted COM channels or face-to-face. Still, there had to be an update she could provide. People liked hearing a word from the General.

"Our away teams continue to make progress in the field," Kimball said, forming her words with care. "We've gained valuable—the united forces of Chorus have gained valuable ground back from Charon through teamwork and cooperation." From the angle of Ghanoush's helmet, she suspected he was doing the zoom in on her face, while McCallister got the wide shot, and she half wished she had her helmet on, hoped she didn't have gochujang at the corners of her mouth. "Here in the capital, we are all making strides toward greater cooperation, and continuing to train as a unified force."

Without missing a beat, Ghanoush picked it up from there. He'd worked hard on his anchor voice, and Kimball had to say, it sounded good, like an official newscast, or at least her memories of such things. "That was General Vanessa Kimball, folks. You’re tuned in to New Republic News, right here in downtown Armonia, where New Republic and Federal Army leadership are making inroads toward peace…”

Afternoon negotiations with Doyle were interrupted, somewhat mercifully, by the Federal Major Stanforth poking her head into the war room. "Captains Grif and Simmons have returned from the excavation site, General." She addressed Doyle, of course, as though Kimball wasn't also in the room—as though Grif and Simmons weren't _her _Captains.

"Already?" Kimball asked. If the whole team had returned, that meant one of two things: either Dr. Grey had found nothing of interest, or she had found something very much of interest and they'd flown back as quickly as possible—

"They used a teleportation device, sir. The rest of the team is still at the excavation site. The captains brought back a stockpile of alien weapons from the research facility."

"Splendid!" Doyle said. "Thank you, Major."

"Alien weapons," Kimball repeated. "So they're nonfunctional."

"Yes," the Major said, "I would assume so."

Of course her captains had taken an expensive shortcut back to base to deliver a heap of useless artifacts. She'd have to have a word with them about the use of those teleportation grenades. If only they'd had an unlimited supply—tactically, they were incredibly efficient. Charon had bases scattered all over the planet from what they could tell, and traveling by Pelican could take hours. The devices were limited, though, and like everything—food, bullets, toothpaste, and arguments—they had to be rationed.

Probably not worth pointing any of that out to Doyle at the moment.

"Thank you, Major," Kimball said. "Any further word on the away team?"

"Just that they were heading out to the tower itself for Dr. Grey to have a closer look."

"Well, I'm sure we'll hear from them after they do," Doyle said mildly. "Ah—dismissed, Major."

Stanforth returned an efficient nod and made her exit.

Just over an hour later, the call came. Not from the away team but from the Armory—in fact the city's massive central parking structure in downtown, conveniently adjacent to the upscale fitness center that had become their headquarters.

It was hard to discern just what had happened over the yelling and the commotion in the background. There was a clear sound of rifle fire and for a good minute Kimball thought it was all over—the Feds and the rebels had turned on one another, the whole base would descend into a firefight within minutes, and they'd all finish each other off before Charon ever had the chance.

"Donut!" Doyle was shouting into the radio. "Private Donut! You must speak up! What in the world is happening down there?"

"We're all going to _die!"_ Donut shrieked, which didn't lower Kimball's adrenaline any.

"It's the weapons!" Simmons shouted, and there was a sound as though he was shoving Donut away from the radio. "The stockpile we brought back from the research facility, they're all—" The radio crackled, drowning Simmons' words in static.

"All _what?" _Kimball demanded. "Simmons, all _what?"_

"They're going off! They're all going off like crazy!"

"Going _off?"_ Doyle said, bewildered.

"Wait," Kimball said, her blood still roaring in her ears. "You mean… they're _working?"_

"I'm telling you, they _were_ working," Simmons insisted. "For a few seconds. The teleportation grenades exploded—"

_"All_ of the teleportation grenades?" Kimball interjected in dismay. She and Doyle had to see this with their own eyes to believe it, had hightailed it over to the Armory with barely a word exchanged, their disagreements momentarily forgotten. By the time they arrived, the Armory was a mess, the Reds shaken, but the weapons—

"—and the guns just started firing, all at once!"

"Well, _something_ definitely happened," Wash said. He'd beaten them to the Armory to try and calm things down. "And we need to figure out what. Simmons, can you send me your helmet footage?"

"Done!"

"Thanks." There was a pause, and then Wash made a noise like "Huh" and a file transfer request popped up on Kimball's HUD. "Generals, you ought to see this, too."

Wash couldn't possibly understand. The Reds and Blues either. To them, the weapons firing off was a shock, nothing more. To her—to _Chorus__—_the very thought of it was mythic, unimaginable. The colonists on Chorus had been digging alien weapons and battle tech out of the ground for decades, and not a single one had _ever_ been found functional.

But there it was, on the helmet footage—grainy, poorly lit, but still unmistakable. A rattling heap of artifacts all activating at once, bursts of fiery orange plasma searing black craters into the concrete. She can still smell it, acrid and sharp and smoky.

Kimball inhaled it deeply, and released her breath.

It was real.

For a moment, the weapons had worked.

"Could it be?" Doyle said. "You don't think—another phenomenon, like—"

Like the Emergence. Doyle was certainly old enough to remember it. Kimball had been 18, just barely enrolled in college, and she remembers, as anyone old enough does: the tremors and the rumbling in the ground, growing stronger, and then, on all the news feeds, reports and video footage of massive alien structure breaking through the planet's crust and rising out of the ground as though driven by some mysterious energy. She'd called her mother in a panic, and years later would still recall vividly that fear unnamed and unnameable, as one feels when faced with something truly alien. When there is no comprehending what this could mean.

The towers arose from every major excavation site, and spots yet undiscovered. Vanessa understood back then that no small part of her mother's fear was that the excavation sites would be destroyed or shut down, and she would lose her job.

Many of her troops, Doyle's too, were too young to remember the Emergence. Their memories of it were a child's memories, too young to understand—or among the very youngest, there was no memory of it at all. The towers were simply _there_—a curiosity for sure, floating as they did above their bases supported by some alien energy source, constructed of elements that could not have come from Chorus, and their interiors, if they even had them, were impenetrable.

What do you do with such a phenomenon? Study it, certainly, with what resources they had, but the UNSC had withdrawn support for the colonization project mere months before. No longer was there massive government funding for scientific pursuits; instead, Chorus's local government was already channeling its limited resources into finding alternate revenue streams for the abandoned colony.

The UNSC might have spent all it was willing to spend on nonfunctional alien artifacts. But the UNSC was not the only player in the galactic market, and there were corporate buyers more than happy to purchase alien technology, functional or not, from an off-the-grid planet just trying to get by.

The weapons sold. But if the towers held further mysteries, none revealed themselves. They emerged from the ground, and there they stood for fifteen years, impenetrable, silent, still. All attempts to study them, to find a way inside them, to activate something, _anything_ further—all failed.

Research funding dried up, and the towers became curiosities.

Within a few years of the Emergence, the tower nearest Armonia had a gondola you could ride up to the top, a concession stand, a photo booth, and a gift shop.

Another phenomenon.

"Yes," Vanessa said, and felt a little stunned that she and Doyle seemed to be agreeing on something. "I think it must be. What else could it be?"

Doyle stroked his chin, or his helmet where his chin would be. "Do you suppose—the away team? They _were_ investigating the Fermata Tower, weren't they? Perhaps they—you know, triggered something."

"Something no one discovered in all these years? I know Dr. Grey is a genius, but even _she__—"_

"Generals," Wash said, "I've got Aqua Squad on the radio. They found something out there."

Back at the war room, the leaders of Aqua Squad appeared onscreen in full color, Carolina's brilliant blue-green and Tucker's similar shade, the Colonel and Caboose in bold red and blue, and in the midst of them Dr. Grey in Federal white with violet accents and nearly bursting with exuberance.

"A second phenomenon in our lifetime! I'd almost given up hope of seeing one—we assumed the first trigger was accidental, or biological, but now—the possibilities this opens up! It's possible we _entirely_ misunderstood the Emergence, and yes General I _do_ understand we are still at war but the potential for further study, further _discoveries,_ the mysteries this planet may still hold for us, my _goodness_ if that isn't a reason to live and fight then I don't know what is—"

"Emily," Doyle exclaimed, bewildered, and Kimball had to restrain herself from shooting a glance at him—Doyle wasn't usually so familiar, at least not with his own troops, but then, Dr. Grey wasn't technically one of his troops. "Please, slow down!"

"Slow _down?_ General, the alien weapons, the vehicles, all of the artifacts we've found over the years, they weren't broken, they were just _deactivated!!_ And Tucker's sword made them work!"

"For all of two seconds," Sarge grunted.

"How is that possible?" Kimball interjected.

"Well," Tucker said, "it's kind of like a sword, _and _a key."

Kimball stared. "What does that even mean?"

"Yeah," Tucker said, "I was part of this 'Great Prophecy' thing, because I took a sword-key from a tower and then an alien took me on a quest to get a ship, but in the end it all kinda turned out to be an excuse to get me knocked up and have an alien baby."

Every once in a while, Kimball though she was through being surprised by Lavernius Tucker, but wonders, it seemed, would never cease.

"You've… reproduced," was all Doyle managed.

"Fuck yeah," Tucker said, producing a print photo from his storage compartment, which, Kimball had to admit, was rather touching. "Junior is awesome! Check him out on his fifth grade basketball team!" The photo featured a row of perfectly ordinary looking human children in gym clothes, and with them, what Kimball could only imagine was a perfectly ordinary looking young Sangheili, proudly holding a ball in one three-fingered hand. She wouldn't know, really—she'd only seen them in vids. Tucker sighed wistfully. "They grow up so fast."

"Well," Doyle said, "that's the last thing I thought I'd see today. Or ever."

"Yeah," Tucker said, "I know! Who carries around actual photographs anymore?"

"All right, focus," Wash cut in. "Let's go over what we know."

"Focus" had never been the Reds and Blues' forte, but Wash and Carolina managed to steer the conversation back to the relevant information. Tucker's sword—key—had activated the Fermata Tower, and with it all the alien weapons, for a few seconds—after which a map had appeared, bearing a set of coordinates to the west, right on the coast. Grey explained that though their own alien stockpile was once again inoperable, Charon's hybrid weapons would have been irreparably damaged by the brief activation.

And if that was true…

Something very like _hope_ rose in Kimball's chest.

"Charon has always had the technological advantage over us," Wash said. "The only reason we've managed to win these last few weeks was because we have them outnumbered."

"And _yet,"_ Doyle said, "we still lose troops with every victory."

"True," Kimball said, "but now we have them outnumbered _and_ outgunned. Without their toys they've got nothing more than standard UNSC weaponry. It's an even playing field."

"You know," Simmons said, "I've been working with weapons a lot lately and I'd just like to point out, that the _standard _UNSC weaponry? Can still put a fucking hole in your skull."

Doyle glanced back at Kimball, his posture uneasy. "We've also yet to encounter Locus or Felix since they left."

_"We'll_ deal with them, when the time comes," Wash said. "Right, Carolina?" He looked to her on the screen, and the two of them shared a look. There was a confidence there, an old rapport. Kimball could feel history in that look, even if it was a history of which she knew little.

But she also felt an uncertainty—a hesitation in the brief pause before Carolina said, "Right. Of course."

That Doyle was against taking offensive action against any heavily-guarded territory was no surprise. That Washington backed him up was not entirely unexpected either. Wash might have been a neutral party, such as it was, and he was no coward (unlike Doyle, she couldn't help thinking, Doyle who was willing to send people to die for his cause when he could barely pick up a rifle), but strategically it hadn't escaped Kimball's notice that Wash preferred safer plays than, say, Carolina.

It was opposition from Carolina that she did not expect.

"Taking Crash Site Alpha _is_ possible," Carolina said, "but not without heavy losses. Those coordinates could lead us to something that might save lives."

"Uh, yeah," Grif said. "'Could?'"

"One tower took out all of Charon's weapons," Epsilon insisted, and Kimball couldn't help wondering if the impatience in his voice reflected Carolina's state of mind as well. "There's no telling what another one could do! I mean, hell, if it gives us a way to turn the other tower back on, we can add badass alien lasers to the armory! Why else are we in this war?"

It took all of Kimball's restraint not to snap something extremely ungenerous in retort. It took her a moment to unclench her jaw.

"We don't have _time_ to investigate," she said, struggling to keep her voice level. "For all we know, Charon's already working on a new batch of rifle replacements."

"Don't have time?" Tucker said, practically bouncing on his heels. "We can just fly right over and check."

Kimball took a deep breath. Aqua Squad's enthusiasm was obvious, and a part of her told her she should be happy about that. But the thought of taking Crash Site Alpha, of _finally_ having an edge over the mercenaries and Charon…

For a moment, it felt real. It felt _possible._

"We already know Locus and Felix have scouts monitoring our activity whenever possible," Wash said. "If we send a ship to the middle of nowhere, they'll notice and they'll follow."

"If these coordinates lead to something, we _can't_ afford it falling into Charon's hands," Carolina protested. "We need to send a small team on foot."

"And that will take time that we don't have," Kimball says, rocking slightly on the balls of her feet, and for a moment, she and Carolina stared each other down, visor to visor, on the screen. Not defiantly; that wasn't the feeling she got from Carolina's posture. But she was firm on this—determined, and Kimball felt something amiss.

Not because Carolina disagreed with her. But because she didn't quite know why.

It was Doyle's idea for them to split up.

The thing is, it wasn't a bad idea. In fact, it was probably the best idea Kimball had yet heard out of Donald Doyle's mouth, though that might be damning with faint praise. It was a _good_ idea. Hedge their bets and cover more ground, with Kimball leading a large contingent to Alpha and Carolina leading a small team to the coordinates. Per the usual, they wouldn't get to work together in the field, but based on their intel, it made _sense._

There was no reason to fight it. And she _needed _to be compromising. Fighting Doyle on everything he said wasn't going to get her anywhere, no matter how wrong he was, and in this case, he _wasn't _wrong. This was an opportunity, and if Kimball had a small bad feeling about it, well—better chalk that up to the general stress of their circumstances. And so she agreed.

Maybe that was her mistake.

But there was another bright spot: Carolina and her team would be returning to Armonia first, to resupply and trade their Pelican for a few lower-profile ground vehicles.

Only overnight, but she and Carolina knew how to make the most of a night.

Aqua Squad's Pelican touched down sometime in the afternoon. Kimball didn't make it up to the roof to greet them, she and Doyle being otherwise occupied with hashing out troop deployment for the assault on Crash Site Alpha. It was agreed that the offensive should consist of an equal number of New Republic and Federal troops, and Kimball, feeling more amicable after the radio call, conceded without a fight to bringing two extra Federal officers, as compensation for her leading the charge and to instill greater confidence in the Federal troops.

Then she called in the high-ranking officers from both sides to talk strategy, and plan their assault.

They had the benefit of helmet cam footage and HUD maps from Carolina and Wash and the Reds and Blues, who had actually _been_ to Crash Site Alpha while Kimball and Doyle thought they were all dead. Kimball had never seen the place, and even on video the view was sobering: a veritable boneyard of wrecked ships with shattered hulls towering over the terrain, the sky an acrid yellow. And rising into the sallow cloud cover, one of Chorus's alien towers, this one a tractor beam that had been dragging ships out of the sky for over a decade.

A memory: the small black spark of General Ansel's prowler against a blue sky, arcing back toward the ground, as the New Republic watched in weary dismay from their desert camp. Everyone had assumed the Feds shot him down. Kimball remembered a tremendous weight on her chest, the eyes of dozens of young soldiers looking to her, and Marri at her side saying quietly, heavily, "General."

She wondered how many ships the Feds lost trying to leave for help. It seemed absolutely absurd to her, that the Feds would believe the rebel faction had access to orbital defenses, but then, given what they'd believed about the Feds' continued strength and numbers and resources, all the way to the end…

Well, it wasn't so unbelievable.

"We'll send scouts ahead," Kimball said. "However, even traveling by ground, we cannot count on having the element of surprise on our side. It's a long drive to Alpha, and there will be ample opportunity for the pirates to pick up on where we're headed. We have to be ready for anything. The good news is that our current intel tells us Charon's hybrid weapons are no longer functional. This does not mean we won't have a tough battle on our hands. It does mean we will have an even playing field. We have a shot, and we're going to take it."

There were nods all around the table.

Kimball gestured to the holographic map. "This will be our primary point of attack. Secondary forces will flank here…"

The strategy session was productive. Surprisingly so, in fact, with helpful contributions from the Federal officers as well as her own. It seemed Kimball wasn't the only one feeling optimistic about their chances, and just being able to work out a plan without a fight… well, that did a lot for her own morale as well.

They were drawing to a close, and Kimball was about to dismiss her officers when a familiar color caught the corner of her eye, and she looked up to see Carolina, leaning on the door frame, arms crossed, one hip cocked. She was helmeted, but Kimball could vividly imagine her winking as she gave a nod. "General."

"Agent," Kimball said, suppressing a smile. "I'll be right with you."

She was late for dinner by the time they wrapped, but when Kimball emerged from the war room, a blue glow caught the corner of her eye. Carolina was sitting on a bench in the hallway, legs crossed, arms crossed, leaning back against the wall, a posture that would've read as disconnected boredom if Kimball didn't know how Carolina looked when she and Epsilon were having a silent conversation.

She halted just outside the doorway, not sure she should interrupt. But Carolina turned her head, sat up straight and took her helmet off. She was smiling, and despite the helmet hair she didn't even look particularly tired. She looked excited, even. Happy.

"General," she said, standing.

Kimball allowed herself an unrestrained smile. "Good to see you on base, Carolina."

"Chow?"

"Please. I could eat a horse."

"Do you even have those here?"

"Don't be silly," Vanessa said, settling into stride beside Carolina, who kept pace easily despite her shorter stature. "We both know horses aren't real animals."

Epsilon flickered. "You know, _most _of the time I can tell when she's kidding."

"I'm kidding," Vanessa said, winking.

"Okay good, because I already had that conversation with Caboose once this week."

"That horses are real?"

"That unicorns aren't."

"Oh," Kimball said, affecting her most serious tone of voice, "unicorns are very real on Chorus."

"Now you're definitely kidding."

"Not a whit. How do you think I got these scars?"

Epsilon blinked, and Carolina burst out laughing.

Vanessa grinned. "Yes, I'm kidding. We _do _have some interesting wildlife on Chorus, though. The interior wasn't always desert—there was a lot more jungle before the mass excavations. The first New Republic HQ was home to some… formidable species. We weren't always as thorough about scouting as we might have been."

Carolina glanced at her. "So those _are_ from an animal? I always assumed—"

"That they were battle scars?" Vanessa said wryly. "I could make up a much better story, but no, the truth is we got cornered by a pack of panjekas and one got close enough to smell."

"Yikes," said Epsilon.

"They're all but extinct now. Industry was hell on the local ecosystems, and the war hasn't necessarily improved matters. They were already endangered when the fighting began, and the remaining ones just got tougher and meaner."

"I did wonder," Carolina confessed. "Didn't look like plasma, or blades, or bullets."

"Nope. Just claws."

"Lucky you made it out."

"Lucky it missed my eye," Kimball said. "The ear scarring's just cosmetic, but I owe my depth perception to two centimeters."

She paused for a response, for the easy back-and-forth, but Carolina had gone suddenly and very strangely silent. Even Epsilon had no more to say. They were tired, Kimball supposed. A long away mission, an even bigger day tomorrow. So she didn't push it, and said nothing more until they reached the mess hall.

Supper featured budae jjigae left over from lunch, the Feds having mostly passed over their share, and Carolina dished herself up a bowl and dove in with relish. "God, this stuff is amazing."

"A New Republic specialty," Vanessa said with a certain amount of pride, and couldn't resist adding, "Feds can't handle the heat."

"Infants," Carolina said through a mouthful of noodles and spicy cabbage.

Vanessa would've been perfectly happy to continue the ragging, but given their mixed company she thought it best to change the subject. "Never had an army base stew in Freelancer?"

"Not like this," Carolina said. "Pretty standard naval fare. Food was fine. Nothing to write home about."

"What food are we talking about?" said Wash, taking a seat at their table.

"Freelancer," Carolina said.

"The _Invention?"_ Wash said. "Better than Infantry grub, I'll tell you that much. Least we had real orange juice."

"Shit coffee though."

"It wasn't that bad."

Carolina snorted and winked at Vanessa. "It was that bad."

"Every outfit has shit coffee," Marri said, taking the seat beside Kimball. They'd finished eating already, just a mug in their hands. "Can you really say you were in if the coffee wasn't shit?"

Kimball laughed. "I'll drink to that."

Carolina raised her mug. "To shit coffee and fighting the good fight."

Wash and Marri raised their own mugs and Kimball her tea for a clink. "To what brings us together," she said, smiling ruefully. "Sometimes it's the little things."

They wouldn't see each other again until later in the evening. Carolina wanted to brief with her team before curfew to save time in the morning, and Kimball needed to finalize plans for the assault, sit in on a few squad briefings, and make sure that officers and troops alike had their marching orders. She needed to visit the Armory for equipment checks and be called a bitch by a couple of asshole Feds, and then be talked down to by Agent Washington. That the Feds showed him as much deference as they did, even when Wash made his neutrality abundantly clear, was just insult on top of injury.

All in a day's work.

"I told you," Kimball said, frustrated, "they won't listen. They're just a bunch of mindless drones that do whatever Doyle tells them to do."

Wash shrugged. "And you're the leader of the cave-dwelling savages that blow things up to get what they want."

"You know that's not true."

Wash gave her a look, as though to say she was missing the obvious. "Well, you haven't done anything to prove them wrong yet, have you?"

His point landed. Kimball resented it anyway. To Wash, both sides were as equally wrong as they were equally right. She wondered sometimes if Wash thought the war had started over nothing. If he thought the rebellion had formed because a bunch of uppity college kids were bored and wanted to start trouble. Because sometimes, it sure seemed that way.

"Agent Washington, I'd appreciate it if you didn't lecture me on how to make friends with the enemy."

Wash cocked his helmet. "The enemy?"

Kimball sighed. "You know what I mean."

He didn't, though. He had no idea what she meant. That was the problem.

Wash's voice softened a bit. "We're all on the same side here, Kimball. Have some faith. If you start believing in them, maybe they'll start believing in you."

Believing in them. What did that even mean? Did Wash think her beef with the Feds was that they were poor _soldiers?_ That they were lacking in skill or discipline? Discipline maybe. Kimball had to spend every day biting her tongue and softening her words, and here were the rank and file troops not even making an effort—but that wasn't fair, since plenty of hers were doing the same.

No, what Wash didn't understand was that for all the mercenaries' interference, for all they had prolonged the war far beyond its natural course, the Federal government had been rotten to the core long before Charon. The New Republic had arisen for a damn good reason.

That's what Wash didn't get. That the war was real.

Doyle, of course, would be staying behind, in charge of the troops guarding the Capital. Much as Kimball would have loved to throw everything they had at Crash Site Alpha, leaving their home base undefended was too risky even for her. Doyle, she knew, was quite happy to stay out of the line of fire. Frankly she couldn't imagine what he would do if Armonia _did_ come under attack while they were away.

But she had to trust him with that much. Perhaps not _trust,_ but she had to let it be.

Please let us win, Kimball thought, standing for a moment in the war room empty of all but herself at last, gazing at the holographic map one last time. Please let this work. Let this be the thing that ends it.

There had been so many moments like this. Armonia was like this. Kimball would not have led her people into the capital against the Feds had she believed there was no chance at victory. But she would have been lying if she said she expected to survive the assault. And yet here she was, standing in downtown Armonia, alive and allied with their once-greatest enemies.

She thought she'd known how quickly things can change. Her military career was a long list of near-victories and near-defeats. But no turning of the tides could match this. For all of her distaste for Donald Doyle the man and the general, for the years of suffering under the old government and the horrors of so much war—they stood here now with a chance to save Chorus. A chance to end the war once and for all.

_What do you fight for?_

"Ah—Miss Kimball?"

Kimball jumped about a foot in the air. "Doyle, what are you—why are you still here?"

"Well, I was _hoping_ to have a quiet moment with the city plans," Doyle said, a bit huffily. "Seeing as you and your men have had the war room occupied for most of the day."

"Well, _yes,_ we've been planning our assault. This could be the most important battle for us yet."

"I didn't say you oughtn't to have done," Doyle said stiffly. It was hard to tell if he meant that as an olive branch, or if he was simply backpedaling.

She took a breath.

"It's a good plan," she said.

"I should hope so."

"I mean, your idea was good. Divide and conquer. It's a good plan. I think it's going to work."

"Oh," Doyle said. "Oh. I—thank you, Miss Kimball."

She gritted her teeth but held her tongue. "You're welcome. Is there—anything I can help you with?"

"No, thank you," Doyle said, his tone softening. He took his helmet off. She'd forgotten she was the only one unhelmeted, actually, until that moment—she liked to make eye contact with her troops during briefings, make that personal connection. Doyle's eyes were more tired than she expected. She didn't know the man's precise age, but he certainly had at least a decade on her, probably closer to two. There was a softness to his hazel eyes and dirty-blond hair gone half-silver. "Just ah, finalizing the guard rotation."

She looked away. "I'll leave you to it, then."

"Good luck tomorrow," said the General of the Federal Army to the General of the New Republic.

"Thank you," said Vanessa Kimball to Donald Doyle, and left him in the war room.

Carolina met her at her quarters, and Kimball couldn't remember the last time she was so happy to see anyone, even with exhaustion sitting heavy in her bones. Sex might not be in the stars tonight. Tomorrow would be a long day and an early one. Still, just to be close to Carolina brought a balm to her weary soul.

"Briefing go well?" she said, as Carolina's face had a satisfied look.

"Better idea," Carolina said with a pointed smirk, dropping her helmet by Kimball's bunk. "Let's not talk about work for a little bit, huh?"

Vanessa found herself rapidly changing her mind about what was in the stars for tonight.

"You have good ideas," she said.

Carolina's lips curved up. "I know I do."

Good ideas. Good hands. Good mouth. Carolina had a lot of good things. Folded into the single bunk together, with Carolina kissing her neck and two fingers inside her, Vanessa had time to contemplate a lot of those good things. Carolina's muscular thigh tucked up between her legs to keep them apart while she circled her fingertips against Vanessa's g-spot, so good she was barely coherent.

"Let me come," Vanessa gasped, pressing against Carolina's body, the softness of her small breast in her palm, wanting to feel every inch of her—wanting her more than anything in this moment, where things were simple and she could want something she could _have._ "Let me—ah,_ Carolina, _please."

"Soon," Carolina murmured, slowing a little, dragging her teeth down Vanessa's earlobe. "Relax."

Vanessa half-laughed, half-moaned. Her whole body was on fire, lit up with pleasure and heat and _presence,_ Carolina so close to her. _This woman I barely know,_ she thought, fleetingly, before the press of fingertips brought her another wave of pleasure and Vanessa pressed desperately against her palm. Carolina changed pace abruptly, working her fingers in fast and hard and Vanessa cried out louder than she'd probably ever let herself on base, coming and coming on Carolina's hand, clinging so hard she left the impressions of her fingers in Carolina's shoulder. Carolina kept her coming, kept her pulsing and shuddering until Vanessa almost couldn't take it anymore, and it crossed her mind that they might want to come up with a safeword for next time, because a part of her _wanted_ to feel helpless and beg Carolina to stop, while Carolina kept going.

The thought brought a flush of heat to her body even as she was starting to come down.

"You want another round?" Carolina murmured, kissing her slowly and languidly. "Because I can do this all night."

"Sleeping, maybe," Vanessa mumbled, the closest she could manage to a sentence.

Carolina nipped at her lower lip. "Never heard of it."

"Shouldn't drink coffee with dinner. Keep you up all night."

"I'll keep you up all night."

Vanessa laughed in spite of herself. "Carolina."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Carolina pulled her in closer, and Vanessa very willingly curled into the warmth of her body. "Big day tomorrow."

Kimball sighed. "Yeah."

"You feeling okay about it?"

She didn't answer for a moment, prompting Carolina to say, "Vanessa?"

It was now or never. The plan was in place, the troops had their orders. The die was cast, as it were. It wasn't that she wanted to change things now.

She just—wanted to talk.

She said, "I'm apprehensive about splitting our numbers, I'll admit. I believe we can take Alpha, but it won't be easy. We're already leaving a substantial contingent behind just to guard the capital."

"I think we're making the right move," Carolina said, folding her arms around Vanessa and combing gentle fingers through her hair, the sensation calming on her scalp. "Alpha is important. And we _have _to know what's at those coordinates. For all we know, _that_ could be what turns the tides of this war."

Something about that made Vanessa bristle slightly, though she couldn't have said why. Instead she said, "I know—it needs to be investigated. I'll miss having you with us at Alpha, that's all."

"Believe me," Carolina said, her voice softening a little, "I wish I could be both places."

"You're only human," Vanessa said, trying to lighten things a little with a smile. "You can't be everywhere at once, I understand that."

"I'm going where I can do the most good," Carolina said. "You're the leader, Vanessa. You can _do_ this. The away mission is really more my speed."

Vanessa shifted a little in bed, propping her head up on one elbow. "How so?"

There was a pause before Carolina answered. "It's just more aligned with my skillset."

"That's not really an answer."

Carolina shifted too, so that they were facing each other, though it was a close look in the narrow bunk. "Can you tell me what you're actually worried about, so that I can help?"

Vanessa felt, vaguely, like something was going off the tracks here, but it was hard to know how to pull it back straight again. "No, it's not—I'm not doubting your abilities, Carolina, you know that."

Carolina's brow furrowed. "I know. I'm just trying to understand what you are doubting. Is it just that you'd rather have all hands on deck at Alpha?"

Until approximately a minute ago Kimball would've said that yes, that was exactly it. Only now it felt like something else.

"When you say it's more aligned with your skillset," she said, "you mean what you did in Freelancer."

Carolina nodded. "That would be accurate, yes."

Vanessa remembered what Marri had said. _You know what those supersoldiers were made for. Crushing insurgent scum like us._ That much, she knew was off the mark—Marri had been drawing on their understanding of the Spartans, and Carolina, impressive as she was, was no Spartan. She didn't possess an augmented carbide-ceramic skeleton, she was not seven feet tall, and she did not wear a two-ton suit of armor powered by a nuclear reactor that couldn't be removed by human hands. That much was obvious from sight and touch alone. The woman who lay naked beside her was scarred from battle but not from physical augmentation and she came up several inches shorter than Vanessa when they were both barefoot. Agent Carolina might qualify as a supersoldier by some definitions, but a Spartan she was not, nor was Agent Washington.

But what Project Freelancer was _for_—that, actually, Vanessa was a bit fuzzy on. The article Felix brought them about the Reds and Blues had actually been pretty fuzzy itself. Freelancer had been one of many "magic bullet" programs frantically funded in the last years of the Great War when things had looked particularly dire for humanity; it had dissolved due to corruption, protocol violations and general mismanagement. She knew that the project was highly experimental and involved the use of AI to enhance combat abilities. She knew that Carolina had been a high-ranking agent and led a squad during her time with the project. She knew from Carolina herself that a particular regret of hers was the loss of Agent Connecticut, who had defected and given information to their enemies, and later been killed by another agent trying to bring her in. She knew that the Freelancers had been given misinformation about their targets—that the soldiers they believed to be Insurrectionists were in fact UNSC guards contracted to Charon Industries. The very _same_ Charon Industries.

And that was about it.

What Carolina had _done_ in Freelancer, what her specific training and missions had been, Kimball had no idea.

"What kind of missions did Freelancer have you running?" she asked. "I don't think you've ever really talked about it."

Carolina took a deep breath. "Technology acquisition, for the most part. Hitting Insurrectionist pockets in Inner Colony territory, or at least, that's what we were _told_ they were. Charon had tech the Director wanted to use, and when he couldn't get the budget for it, he sent us to steal it. I've had some experience securing objectives with a lot of unknown variables."

"Ah," Vanessa said. "That makes sense." It did, in fact—the coordinates from the tower were nothing _but_ unknown variables. "I hope you don't think I doubt your abilities in any way. I've seen what you can accomplish in the field, and if there's anybody I'd trust with this mission, it's you."

A smile crossed Carolina's face at that.

"But I am nervous, I'll admit. About what you're going to find, as much as about Alpha. There's a lot riding on this battle, and I'm… not as comfortable with unknown variables as you are."

Carolina nodded. "I can understand that, Vanessa, I really can. But like it or not, those variables are out there. Whatever's at those coordinates—it's not a question of _if_ we get to it, but _who_ gets to it and when. My job is turning unknowns into knowns. Let me _do_ that for you. Information is always an asset, and we need every advantage we can get."

"I know," Vanessa said, and despite everything, she couldn't help feeling a bit reassured. Carolina was nothing if not persuasive. "I know, and that's why I agreed. I'm sorry. We said we weren't going to talk about work."

Carolina regarded her with thoughtful eyes. "It's fine. You're right, there _is_ a lot riding on tomorrow. You need to feel confident in the mission."

"Speaking of unknowns…" Vanessa lowered her head back to the pillow, settling into a more comfortable position. "There's a lot I still don't know about you, you know."

Carolina blinked. "Like what?"

The question felt so absurd that Vanessa had to fight to keep from laughing. "Well, case in point, I don't know a lot of what you did in Freelancer."

The change in Carolina's face would have been almost imperceptible, if she weren't sitting so close and looking so intently. A slight hardening of her jaw, the way her eyes darted momentarily away. "Not a lot of good, I can tell you that much."

"I'm sorry if it's a sore subject," Vanessa said quickly, feeling as though she'd misstepped. Carolina didn't answer, which only intensified the feeling. "Before Freelancer, then. School, your family?"

Carolina's face did not soften. Vanessa had the distinct feeling that shifting the topic had not improved matters, only this time, she had no idea what it was she was stepping in.

After a painfully long pause, Carolina said, "This probably isn't the best time for us to get into it."

Vanessa should have left it there. Any sensible, sensitive person would have. Under ordinary circumstances, she thinks later, _she_ would have. Would've understood she was treading into painful territory, places that weren't hers—places she had no business pushing her way into uninvited.

Too many unknown variables.

But what are ordinary circumstances in war? What is a sensible decision when there might not be a next time, when you're about to drive into a battle from which you might not return?

If there's one thing she wishes she could change, it's that. The moment when she didn't drop it, and lie down next to Carolina, and fall contentedly asleep.

When she said, instead, "Is there such a thing as a best time?"

When Carolina inhaled through her nose and her expression took on a cornered look, and she said, "It's a big day tomorrow. We both need sleep."

Vanessa raised an eyebrow in what she meant to be a playful look. "You didn't seem so concerned about that earlier."

"You didn't seem to mind."

"I didn't," Vanessa said honestly. "I just—"

Carolina watched her, waiting. She could've backed down right then. She could've said, nothing, it's fine. You're right, this isn't the best time.

"I just didn't think that's all we had going."

Carolina sat up, cocking her head. "Didn't think _what_ was all we had going?"

"Just… sex."

Carolina stared. "You don't really think that." She drew her legs up under her into a cross-legged position. _"Do_ you?"

"I don't know what I should think. We haven't exactly talked about it."

"About us? This? Is that what you want to talk about?"

"Not exactly—I mean—" Vanessa could feel herself fumbling, losing the thread. Her tiredness catching up with her, all the stress and frustration of the days and weeks leading up to this moment, and she grasped at a way to explain the feeling she herself could barely hold onto. "I just—I spend more time to talking to a man that I—” she bit her tongue before she said _hate_, and corrected, “to _Doyle, _than I do to you. And we’re—and that's kind of an important part of a relationship, talking."

"Not always," Carolina muttered, so under her breath that Vanessa had to strain to hear.

She sat for a moment, dumbfounded. "I don't… even know what to say to that."

Carolina spread her hands. "I don't know what to say either. Are we having a fight right now?"

"I didn't mean for us to be."

"I'm sorry, Vanessa. I _really_ don't know what you want me to say here."

"You don't have to—" Vanessa stopped, and tried one more time. "I'm just trying to say that I want to know you."

"You don't think you know me?"

"Not the way I want to."

Carolina swallowed.

"Unless you don't want me to," Vanessa added. "And if that's the case… I don't know where this can go."

Carolina exhaled. A long beat passed before she swung her legs off the bed, and Vanessa's heart sank.

"I'd better go," she said, and Vanessa just sat there, watching Carolina suit back up, and leave her room.

Lying in the dark by herself, regret sat heavy in her chest, and though her exhaustion carried her to sleep, it was a sleep without peace.

She'd take it all back if she could. God, but she was stupid.

It still wouldn't have prevented what happened after.

"You cannot be serious," Kimball says. She's shaking with anger. "You cannot be. This is some kind of goddamned stress-induced hallucination. You are not standing in front of me telling me that _you handed over a weapon of mass destruction to our enemies_."

"I did not _hand it over," _Doyle protests. "I assure you I made _every_ attempt to keep the sword out of the hands of our enemies—"

_"Every_ attempt? Oh, you made _every_ attempt, did you?"

"I was cornered! I made the best of the situation that I could possibly—"

"And _why_ were you cornered?" Kimball snaps. "Because you went in without backup, after Carolina _explicitly_ told you to send a team to the mountain. She told you _exactly_ what needed to be done, you didn't even have to _think_ about it, but you just _had_ to play the hero, didn't you? How'd that work out for you, General?"

Doyle huffs. "I would've thought _you_ of all people would _appreciate_ my sending backup to Agent Carolina's team when they were pinned down with no escape—"

"And just what is _that_ supposed to mean—"

"Miss Kimball," Doyle says plaintively, "what's done is done! I made what I believed was the right call in the moment—both here, and on the mountain."

"Oh, good for you!"

"Thank you!" Sarge calls from around the corner, reminding Kimball that they have an audience. The Reds and Blues have apparently arrived to debrief as well.

Fantastic.

"It was a split second decision," Doyle says, "and I stand by it."

"Well," Kimball snaps, "thanks to you, the mercenaries now have the power to _kill us all."_

"Only if I die first!" Doyle protests.

Don't threaten me with a good time, she thinks. "Great! So now we'll get to waste valuable men to guard you twenty-four-seven."

"Well, we'd have more men if _you_ hadn't led them all into a trap."

Kimball goes cold with fury. "Don't you _dare_ turn this around on me."

"Okay," Wash barks, _"enough_. You two are acting like children."

"Ha ha!" Grif chimes in, with the worst sense of timing Kimball has ever seen in her life, "you're immature!"

"Dish duty," she snarls.

"Fuck!"

Wash ignores Grif, turning to her and Doyle, and his voice softens when he says, "What's done is _done._ So let's quit focusing on what went wrong and start thinking about what we have now, and what we can start _doing_."

The worst of it is that he's right. If Kimball could solve this by killing Doyle where he stands, she'd happily oblige. Instead, Doyle is now the most important body on the planet to keep breathing. Her anger at him won't change that.

She takes a deep breath, and recites a few mantras in her head while the conversation turns elsewhere. Dr. Grey has said that Carolina will recover. Epsilon is functional as well, though there may be… complications.

It's the Colonel who suggests they attempt to take the Temple of Communication. The Aria Tower, as Kimball knows it, located to the northeast. It's as good an idea as any, which is to say, it's not much of an idea but it's something. With Alpha, they could've gotten a ship off Chorus for help. With Aria, they might be able to send a message.

"Dial 1-800-send-ships-and-kill-pirates!" the Colonel says with gusto. Even through her outrage and exhaustion, she has to appreciate the enthusiasm. "Standard text-messaging rates apply."

"Are you done?" Wash says brusquely.

The Colonel shrugs. "I'll think of more."

"We can't just go barging in like we did with Alpha," Wash says.

"I couldn't agree more!" Doyle chimes in.

Kimball feels like reminding Wash that he thought that plan was a good idea yesterday. _Doyle_ thought that plan was a good idea yesterday. They all did. She just watched nearly half her troops die under her command because their intel was bad, and that's on _all_ of them. She expected Doyle to blame her—the man won't even take responsibility for his own fuck-ups—but Wash was at Alpha with her. He knows what happened there, and he can stop taking digs at her _any_ time.

"Well, we can't just _sit_ here and wait for Charon to attack!"

"Why not?" Doyle asks. For fuck's sake. He's being sincere. "It's heavily fortified and the city reactor rules out the risk of aerial bombings. Our alien artifacts are no good to Charon post-explosion, my dear."

"Then they'll surround us and wait for our supplies to run dry! Jesus, don't you _think_ about any of this?"

"So, _you_ suggest we throw Tucker out there to search for the tower?" Doyle retorts, even though she hasn't suggested anything of the sort. "They'll _kill_ him, and then they'll have _two_ swords!"

"Hey, I could make it!" Tucker halfheartedly protests. "Maybe."

Kimball takes a deep breath. "I don't have all of the answers, _General_, but I do know that sometimes you have to risk lives if you want to see results. Even your own. _Especially_ your own." She squares her shoulders, staring Doyle down. "You should have thrown that sword off the mountain and taken the fucking bullet, but you're too much of a stupid, _selfish _coward to see that."

There. She's said it. She's said it and she's glad. If that's the end of their alliance then so be it. She can't do this anymore. She _can't._ She can't pretend to work with a man who won't do what needs to be done. Doyle's already shown his true colors today. Relying on him may already have doomed them all. She won't make that mistake twice.

"Kimball!"

And she won't stand here and be shouted at by Agent Washington like some insubordinate recruit.

"This meeting is over," she says coldly, and she turns on her heel, ignoring Wash's protests, and heads for the hospital.

Armonia Hospital is halfway across the city.

Plenty of time for Kimball's anger to cool, and for her failure to settle heavy on her heart. For guilt to needle its way into her mind, whispering with a familiar voice.

_Come on, Vanessa, give me a little credit. I was your right-hand man for years! You really think I wouldn't see this coming?_

God, she played right into his hands. No matter what she does, no matter how hard she fights, the way Felix _knows_ her is something she will never be able to undo. Years of working with him, of trusting him, of strategy sessions and sleepless nights and Felix, coming in when things were at their worst with a fresh batch of weapons. Felix at the wheel of a new Warthog, pulling into HQ with a showy stop and a motorcade of cheering young soldiers in more new vehicles behind him, like ducklings in a row. Felix bringing her a cup of tea in the war room after she'd been awake 72 hours straight. Felix telling her, "We got this one, Vanessa."

She never closed herself to him, never concealed her fears or frustrations. She wore her every emotion on her fucking sleeve. She still does.

She never stood a chance against someone like him.

Her mistakes cost hundreds of people their lives today, and for nothing. For a tactical retreat and no time to mourn the lost. For the grim expressions of her senior officers and the crushed looks of the junior staff, all of the hopes she'd had them pour into this day destroyed. And just when she'd thought things couldn't get worse, that radio call. The Key in the hands of the mercenaries, and Carolina missing.

Losing the Key was Doyle's fault. What happened to Carolina was not, nor was the disaster at Crash Site Alpha. As for the reinforcements—did he make the wrong call? Without backup at Alpha she would almost certainly be dead, or at least even fewer of them would've made it back. She hears Felix again, hears Felix always, _That's war, Vanessa,_ and she wants to tear herself open, turn her brain inside out, just to get him _out_.

Maybe she and Doyle both are the real problem here.

Maybe things would be better if they'd both died out there today.

By the time she reaches the hospital, she's managed to pull herself off that train of thought, at least a little. Enough to realize she's been so busy feeling sorry for herself, she hasn't thought about what she's going to say to Carolina.

What _can_ she say, after the way they left things?

The hospital is still bare bones, using only as much power as needed. The light is on at the front desk and in the office behind, but the corridors are dim. Vanessa goes to the desk, manned by a Federal Specialist who meets her gaze with a stony look. She forces herself to read the young woman's ID tag, which says, _Karen Yung._

"Could you tell me where to find Agent Carolina, please?" Kimball says, and her voice sounds shakier than she expects.

"Dr. Grey," Karen says into the radio, "paging Dr. Grey."

"One moment please!" the doctor's voice chirps. There's a vague crashing sound, a "Hold still!" and then static. Kimball sighs. Karen studies her left glove intently.

"Sorry about that, darling! What can I do for you?"

"What room's the Freelancer in? Kimball's here looking for her."

"343! Tell the General she can come on up, but don't stay too long, please! Agent Carolina needs her rest."

Karen nods at Kimball. "Elevator's that way."

"The elevators are running?"

"'S what I said."

Kimball exhales, too tired to fight anyone else today. "Thank you."

Carolina is lying on her side, armor on, helmet off. For a moment, Vanessa thinks she's sleeping, thinks maybe she'll come back later, but then Carolina's head turns slightly and her eyes are open.

"Carolina?" Vanessa says softly.

"Hey," Carolina says, hoarsely. She sounds like hell, and Vanessa has to remind herself that Dr. Grey said she was going to be okay.

"I just wanted to check on you," she says quietly, not sure if she should come in. Dr. Grey said to let her rest, not to stay long.

"Thanks."

Vanessa takes a deep breath. "Do you—want to talk about happened up there?"

She watches Carolina's shoulders rise and fall, the stark lines of her armor against the white of the bed and the walls, and she sees again Carolina lying in the snow, Carolina motionless, Carolina alone. She remembers her heart in her throat when the call came, Carolina missing—Carolina maybe dead. She thinks with a terrible heaviness of how badly she's already screwed things up. She thinks of the casualties at Alpha, all the names they left behind.

And she knows that even if it's over, even if she can't fix what she said last night, losing Carolina like that would've been a loss unlike the rest. Not greater, but singular. A loss of a different kind.

She watches Carolina for the length of a breath, in and out, and feels the full weight of that relief, before the answer comes, quietly: "No."

"Okay," Kimball says, and she goes.


	2. Every Advantage

The first thing she hears is Church calling her.

_Carolina? Carolina_ _… Sis, it’s me. C, please wake up. Please. I can’t do this without you._

_Sis._

_Wake up. Please._

Her mind is full of snow, static, white, and she can still feel herself falling. Falling, or floating. Outside of herself in a way that brings up from the buried depths a feeling of panic. Of being lost in an endless expanse of white, with no trail, no team, no plan and no way home.

_Carolina!_

Someone is calling her name out of the white.

The white becomes walls, ceiling, light.

The white becomes armor accented in violet.

Still she feels floating somehow, cushioned on an endless depth of snow.

Carolina tries to speak, but her mouth is cotton and nothing comes out. But a familiar blue light cuts through the whiteness in her head, a voice.

_Hey, sis. How you feeling?_

I don’t—what happened?

_Yeah, we uh. We can talk about that later._

Where are we?

_Hospital. You took a—you took a pretty bad fall out there. _

Someone is talking to her, a long way off.

Why can’t I talk? What’s going on?

_Yeah, you're not quite awake yet. You kind of have a concussion. Another one._

What?

_And a back injury. _

WHAT?

_Not spinal, don't worry, your armor took the worst of it and the healing unit’s working on the rest. You’re gonna be fine. Also, you did kind of fuck up your leg again._

Epsilon!

“Good morning, sunshine!” the purple and white armor says, far too cheerfully for whatever hour of the day or night it is, and Carolina groans.

“Please tell me Epsilon is fucking with me and I don’t have another _concussion.__”_

Dr. Grey chuckles. “You’ve injured your back, _re-_injured your knee, and generally banged yourself up all over!”

“So I _don’t_ have a concussion?”

“Oh, no, sweetie. You definitely have a concussion. You just told me not to tell you!”

Carolina grits her teeth, which makes her head hurt more.

_Easy, C._

She unclenches her jaw.

“You’re actually very lucky! Your armor look most of the impact. Your healing unit didn’t activate until Epsilon came back online, but it’s done some solid work since then!”

Came back online?

There is an uncomfortable silence in her head.

Carolina takes a deep breath. “When can I get out of here?”

“As your doctor, I’m obligated to place you on bed rest and order you not to undertake any strenuous activity until I clear you for that TBI!”

“Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“I’m well aware, sweetheart. But I’m still obligated to say it!”

“Thanks.”

“Since we’ve cleared you for brain bleeds or skull fractures, however, I _can_ prescribe painkillers!”

“Great. I’ll take some of those. No narcotics.”

“I’ll have those sent right over!” Dr. Grey says cheerfully.

Carolina waits until the doctor is out of the room, and then climbs out of bed and grabs her helmet.

_Not even gonna pretend to do that rest thing, huh? Not even for five minutes?_

The Key. The Temple. We have to find out what happened. We don’t have any time to spare. Come on.

_You don’t have to tell me to come on. I’m right here._

Yeah, Carolina thinks, and sighs, something nagging at the back of her mind to figure out later. I know you are.

She’s dizzy before she makes it to the elevator. Carolina pauses to steady herself against a wall, trying to clear her head. She knows this hospital a little, was here with Vanessa that one night after Tucker was stabbed, but… she’s lost her bearings. What floor is this? They were only using the lower floors last she remembered.

Her stomach is churning and if she’d eaten anything in the past—how many hours?—she’s pretty sure she’d throw up. She pulls her helmet off just in case and leans on the wall, taking deep breaths. Oh god. She’s just now starting to feel how much she hurts, kind of an undefined, full-body ache. Her head is pulsating, feeling like her brain’s trying to escape her skull.

_Carolina._

Just—don’t, for a minute. Just give me a minute.

_Carolina, we need to go back, you’re not ready to—_

I have to!

_You **can't**. _

Carolina half-screams, half-sobs with frustration, pressing her back into the wall. She has to be okay. She has to fucking be okay. She cannot afford this right now. None of them can. They need her. She cannot be incapacitated. She cannot be—

_C. Come on. Just breathe._

Breathing isn’t working. She’s pulling air into her lungs, but it’s too fast, she’s not getting any oxygen, she’s suffocating, her heart’s beating like it’s going to explode—

_Carolina. Carolina, listen to me, you'r_ _e having a panic attack right now. You’re not dying. It’s gonna be okay. You just need to breathe, okay? Breathe. Try and slow down._

She can’t slow down. She can’t. Everything is falling apart. They need her—

_I need you. I need you to breathe._

Inhale. Exhale.

_Keep that up._

Thanks.

_I'm serious._

So am I.

She makes it back to the room.

Dr. Grey hasn’t returned. Carolina honestly doesn’t know what’s more humiliating, the thought of getting caught trying to sneak out of the hospital like a teenager after curfew, or the fact that she tried and couldn’t even make it down the hall.

Her back hurts, which doesn’t really register until she sits down on the edge of the bed and grimaces.

She rubs her hands over her face. Her undersuit is already pulling the sweat away from her skin, but her face feels clammy and her hands are shaking. Heart rate’s settling back down, at least.

Anxiety attacks aren’t unfamiliar, but… it’s been a long time since she had one. Before Chorus. Before she came out of hiding.

She’s regressing.

_You're not. You just had a bad moment. It’s gonna be okay._

It’s so much more than that, but she’s too tired to argue. With Epsilon. With anybody.

It’s a nurse who comes back with her pain meds, not Dr. Grey, and Carolina mechanically takes what she’s given. The nurse doesn’t try to make small talk, which somehow feels worse. Means everyone knows how bad things are.

Her grappler’s still maglocked to her hip, but when she checks the other side, her Magnum’s gone. Her battle rifle too. For fuck’s sake. She was about to charge out of the hospital without any of her weapons.

She stretches back out on the bed, feeling it creak under the weight. Back on the _Invention_, they had beds designed for full armor. In a lot of cases, it’s actually safer not to take it off. Armor monitors vitals, regulates temperature, and in her case, it has the healing unit to run.

When she stops moving, she can feel it, kind of a warm tingle under her skin as it stimulates cell regeneration, healing tissue damage. The unit can’t fix everything, but it can speed things along. In a pinch it can keep you alive. Sometimes. York’s healing unit couldn’t save him. It did save Wash.

Wash.

Carolina pings him on their private channel.

“Carolina,” Wash says immediately. “You’re awake. How’re you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Wash, what happened? At the Temple? Who has the Key?”

Over the radio, she can hear Wash exhale. “That’s… a long story.”

“Tell me. I’m—” _God,_ she hates having to say this. “I’m stuck here for a little bit. What happened?”

“Doyle took the Key from the Temple, and the mercs took it from him.”

Carolina curses.

“It seems to function the same way Tucker’s sword does. The Key’s… bonded, or imprinted, or whatever it does, to Doyle. As long as he’s alive, no one else can use it.”

“_Tell me_ he’s alive.”

“He is. He’s back at base. Things are pretty tense over here.”

“I bet.”

There’s a pause, before Wash says, a little stiffly, “I’m glad you’re all right. I—I’m sorry, I would’ve come over to see you, it’s just—”

“Wash, you don’t have to explain anything. I’m glad you’re where you’re needed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Wash chuckles. “Let me guess. Dr. Grey has you handcuffed to the bed?”

“Like that would stop me.”

“Not for a minute,” Wash says, sounding a little more relaxed. “Do what the doc says though, okay? Seriously. You were pretty banged up.”

She can't help smiling. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Good to hear your voice, boss.”

“You too, Wash. Stay sharp.”

Wash lets out a wry laugh. “No other way to be these days.”

It does settle her down a little, hearing his voice. She meant what she said. Last thing she wants is Wash moping around the hospital when he’s needed on base, and what she likes about Wash is he gets that, instinctively. Wash may not be the most proactive soldier, but he knows where he’s needed, and he can get work done. Knowing he’s out there, doing what needs doing, sets her mind at ease a little. Not completely, but some.

Lying here still feels like giving up. Like laziness, like weakness, like everything she’s done wrong and everything she’s still doing wrong that is going to ruin everything and also get everyone killed.

It strikes her as funny, in a hollow kind of way, that she is simultaneously fucked up about everyone on the planet dying and about the woman she’s been sleeping with maybe-possibly-probably dumping her. Priorities.

She would laugh if she didn’t feel so heavy, so exhausted she can’t keep herself upright.

“Carolina?”

It’s Vanessa in the doorway. Carolina would know her voice anywhere, can _feel_ that concern radiating off her, and it makes her skin prickle with dread, her whole body tense, that sort of quiet horror welling up in her stomach. She can’t. She can’t. She can’t do this right now, she can’t—

For a moment she wonders if she can pass for sleeping, then realizes her eyes are open and this is stupid and just say something, Carolina, god damn it.

"Hey," she manages.

“I just wanted to check on you,” Vanessa says quietly.

“Thanks,” she says, and her own voice sounds hoarse and tired.

“Do you—want to talk about what happened up there?” Vanessa adds, haltingly.

There’s no good answer to this, not one Carolina can stand right now, when she can’t even look Vanessa in the eye. When everything is collapsing on top of her and there’s not a damn thing she can do to stop it.

“No,” she says, and squeezes her eyes shut.

There is a long pause in which she can feel Vanessa’s presence, hear her uncertain breath.

“Okay,” she says softly, and she goes.

When she’s gone, Carolina pulls the covers over her face and her head swims in a sea of dark, and she thinks that this is one of those times when it might feel good to be able to cry, or at least better.

Even Epsilon doesn’t try to shake her from her silence.

He knows as well as she does that this is just what she deserves.

It all happened because she ran off alone. Because she did exactly what she’s supposed to know better than to do. The thing _Tex_ always did, lone-wolfing, and screwing things up for _everyone _else in the process. But winning anyway. That’s the difference, Tex _still _always won.

How do you stop making the same mistakes over and over? It’s like she can _see _herself making them, and she just can’t seem to stop.

The weeks leading up to this were _good._ That makes it worse, somehow. A lot of things seemed to line up right during those first few weeks in Armonia. The fitness center was quickly turned into a new training facility, the parking garage set up as an armory and motor pool. Nearby abandoned buildings became troop barracks. The administrative wing of the fitness center became a command center, as it still had working computers, and Kimball and Doyle set up quarters nearby.

Carolina accepted a command, and chose her squad.

The day before they were schedule to deploy, she made her move with Kimball. She couldn't have asked for a more perfect setup. Seemed like Vanessa was just waiting for that right moment, too. Things falling into place.

"And you've found quarters for yourself?" Vanessa said. They were on their way out of the war room, troop deployments finalized, everything in place for the new offensive campaign.

"Nah. I won't need them. I'll be spending most of my time out in the field. No reason to take up a bed."

"Where will you sleep when you are on base?"

Carolina shot Vanessa a purposeful smirk. "I'm sure I can find somebody to let me crash."

A slow smile spread across the General's face, and Carolina knew her line had landed.

"Need a bed to crash tonight?"

Carolina grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

They crashed all right. Crashed into each other with the force of a hurricane. Carolina had to admit, she wasn't fully expecting Vanessa's _eagerness,_ though she sure wasn't complaining. The always measured, always thoughtful Vanessa Kimball had Carolina pushed up against the wall in her quarters that night, before she'd got all of her armor plating off. They knocked breastplates, and Vanessa laughed against her mouth.

"God," she said, "I've been wanting to do this since the party."

Carolina smirked with triumph, and Vanessa kissed her again, hard.

The General of the New Republic was a little pent up, maybe.

Carolina loved that. Loved being able to give her exactly what she wanted. And it was obvious, right from the start, that Vanessa liked it when she pushed back.

Her fingers fumbled for the clasps of Carolina's armor, before she pulled back and laughed again, a little sheepishly. "I don't know how your armor works."

Carolina snickered. "Well, that puts me at an advantage, doesn't it." And in a moment she had Kimball pinned up against the wall instead, her dark eyes widening.

"I guess it does," Vanessa said, a little breathless in just the right way.

Carolina made quick work of the General's armor—she could find the releases on standard-issue power armor in her sleep, and the Chorus models were close enough to standard issue, unlike her very nonstandard Freelancer rig—and purposefully didn't take off any more of her own until she had the General down to her her undersuit, at which point Kimball hooked a finger into her breastplate and gave a pointed tug.

Carolina smirked. "In a minute."

It was so easy the first time. Easy stripping out of armor with Vanessa, turning from soldiers into humans, enjoying the touch of skin she'd been imagining for days, the heat of Vanessa's mouth against her own. Wasn't always easy to get out of her own head, especially with Epsilon in there (he was offline now, of course) but sex had always been something Carolina could throw all of herself into—like training, or like fighting. It was easy to fill every space, every gap in her mind with the taste of Vanessa Kimball, the smell of her skin, the heat of her mouth and the pleasure of her touch.

It was _not_ easy fitting both of them into Vanessa's narrow single bunk, but you learn to deal with that kind of thing in the military. Carolina just pushed Vanessa down on her bed and crawled on top of her and she heard no complaints. Vanessa’s nipples stiffened and peaked toward the ceiling at her touch, her breathing heavy against Carolina’s mouth. She slid her knee between Vanessa’s thighs and let her hands travel down, descending her ribs one by one.

Minutes later she had two fingers inside Vanessa, fucking her all slick and hot, and just the way she moaned and arched her back had Carolina wet. Rubbing her g-spot with fingertips, teasing until Vanessa was panting and seconds from the edge and then pulling back, letting Vanessa tense and whimper for a moment and then pumping her fingers fast until Vanessa was pleading.

“Carolina, _Carolina_ oh fuck please—”

And then back to her g-spot, feeling Vanessa writhe under her, letting the pleasure build again.

Carolina buried her face in Vanessa’s neck, slowing her pace as she dragged kisses under her jaw, down over her collarbone. Vanessa turned to press her cheek against Carolina’s forehead, breath hot on her skin.

God, Carolina loved having her like this, could not imagine a more beautiful sight in this moment than the General of the New Republic naked and breathless and undone in her arms.

She pushed her over the edge, finally, and Vanessa cried out into Carolina’s hair as she clenched and pulsed around her fingers.

That’s number one, Carolina thought, grinning to herself and stilled her hand for a moment to let her rest. Just for a minute. She wasn’t finished yet.

She got to three before Vanessa gently pulled her hand away, trembling and sweaty, but with a little breathless smile. “That was amazing, Carolina, you’re amazing, you know.”

“I know,” Carolina said smugly, nestling against Vanessa’s side.

“Mmm.” Vanessa nuzzled up to her, wrapped one arm around her. “What can I do for you?”

Carolina’s smile widened. “Whatever you want.”

Vanessa laughed. “That’s giving me a lot of power.”

Carolina snorted. “I trust you.”

Vanessa held her for a long moment in silence, just long enough that Carolina started to think maybe she was going to fall asleep instead, which would've been fine. But then she pulled her close, and kissed her, and her hands start to wander, and the moment was forgotten.

She got Carolina to three too, before the night was out.

_So that was the plan all along, huh?_

Epsilon was grumpy about it in the morning, of course. He was usually grumpy about having to go offline. He was grumpy about a lot of things, like Carolina training after midnight and drinking four cups of coffee before morning drills. It was part of his charm.

I offered to let you go hang out with Tucker, Carolina reminded him, topping off her coffee mug.

_Yeah, pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to sit in on what Tucker was up to last night, either._

Oh.

Carolina turned, glancing toward the doorway of the cafeteria. It was early morning in the mess, well before breakfast, but there was always a pot of coffee going. She'd made sure of that as soon as they started assigning kitchen duty.

Wash, on his way in, caught her eye and nodded hello.

Ohhh.

_Yeah._

Fair enough.

Carolina hid a smirk in her coffee and clapped Wash affectionately on the shoulder on his way to the coffee pot. He shot her kind of a hand-in-the-cookie-jar look, but Carolina just smiled and kept moving.

_I hope you know you're just as obvious as he is._

Carolina snorted. And yet you're just figuring it out about them?

_Wait, what?_

Church, Wash and Tucker have been sleeping together since the crash site.

_WHAT?!_

She was laughing out loud now.

_No fucking way. Tucker would've told me. He'd never be able to shut up about that._

Jealous?

_Fuck you._

I mean, you _could _try being nicer to Tucker.

_Oh, great. Just what I need. Nice lessons from Agent Carolina. I'll get right on that._

I'm just saying.

_How did you—wait. _Epsilon paused, consternation flooding their shared brainspace. _Did Tucker tell you? _

Maybe he did, Carolina teased. What's it to you?

The presence in her mind buzzed with irritation.

You _are _jealous!

_Fuck. You._

Relax. I didn't hear it from Tucker. Wash just has no poker face.

_Yeah,_ Epsilon muttered, grudgingly. _That tracks. _

Aqua Squad deployed that morning right after breakfast. Kimball was stuck in a meeting with Doyle and couldn't see them off, but she sent Carolina a private message over COMs later, saying, _let me know if you need a bed to crash in when you're back on base ;)_

And Carolina grinned to herself and texted her back, _pretty sure i will :*_

And that's how things went. A few days in the field, with the occasional private text in between outposts. Then a stop back to base to refuel and resupply, and a night with Vanessa.

Epsilon got over it. He always did, eventually. Just turned into part of their routine.

It was good, being with someone again. More than that. Making someone happy. Not just the sex, but the missions too. Bringing back good news. Seeing the pride in Kimball's eyes when they touched down on the roof of the Command Center and piled off the Pelican, all of her squad flying high on their victories and spreading that morale boost around base with their arrival.

Aqua Squad were the MVPs of the united Chorus army, knocking down Charon's remote bases like dominoes. The New Republic soldiers looked up to Tucker, and the Feds respected Sarge, and they all got to see the two officers get along. Carolina herself was effectively a neutral party.

Inter-team fighting was zero-tolerance. She stacked her squad a little heavy for the first away mission, knowing full well there would be fighting, and there was—Hammond and Raphael came to blows on day two. Carolina promptly benched them both and stuck them on the first flight back to Armonia. The rest of them took their first base that night, and she made sure every soldier in her squad felt the pride of that victory. She also made sure that everyone back at base knew the non-sensitive details of their victories, and excitement was high every time they stopped in to resupply.

The message was simple. Do your job, be part of the team, and you get to win and enjoy the perks of winning. Screw around, and you can go home while your teammates celebrate without you.

There were no more fights after that. Tense moments, sure. But the fear of getting kicked off the squad, of missing out, was enough to keep them from escalating. They stayed on the move, making only brief overnight stops back to Armonia before flying back out.

She remembers standing on a grassy hilltop in the sun by outpost C-2 while her squad eagerly swept the base for useful items, watching Tucker and Sarge share a victory dance, and thinking, maybe this really was where she belonged.

She was a squad leader again.

And she was happy.

Carolina always lay awake for a little while, folded into Vanessa's bed with her, watching her shoulders rise and fall. Vanessa was the taller of them but in bed, stripped of her armor, she looked a little smaller. With the tension gone out of her spine, and her breathing soft, she looked content, at peace. The truce was hard on her, Carolina knew that, and the negotiations with Doyle had her under a lot of stress.

But for a few hours, Carolina could take her away from that. Make her feel good.

Sometimes she'd just lie there, folded against Vanessa's back and run her fingertips through her short, glossy black hair, gently massaging her scalp. Stay close until the General's breathing was deep and even, until she was truly at rest.

Carefully, Carolina would ease herself out of the bunk, so she wouldn't wake her up. She'd pull the covers back into place, get dressed quick and quiet.

Shut the door behind her softly and carefully.

Nighttime in Armonia. They say a city never sleeps, but Armonia was newly awake. Resurrected, even, after her death—ravaged by the war, then left an abandoned husk.

They occupied just a small piece of downtown, relative to the full size of the capital. The fitness center, the parking structure, the surrounding buildings. It was a sobering reality, that the population of Chorus could now fit inside a few city blocks.

Carolina set off at a jog.

She heard a sound, and looked up in time to see the rail car rumble overhead. Some of the Feds had been working on the rail as an alternate means of transportation—a faster way to carry troops from downtown to the edge of the city. Doyle's idea, Kimball had said. She wasn't fond of it herself—what good was it to rush troops out of the city by public transportation without vehicles to travel from there? She'd conceded the point, however, on the condition that limited manpower be assigned to the project.

Seemed like they'd made some progress.

Carolina watched the trajectory of the car until it was out of sight, and realized where it was headed. The hospital. That was… smart, actually. The hospital was halfway across the the city from the fitness center. They needed both facilities; it couldn't be avoided. But now they would have fast travel between the two.

Feeling warmed up, Carolina broke into a full run, deciding on a whim to follow the monorail track.

At this hour, the most light came from the hospital. That was priority one for power; priority two was the command center. Rows of windows at Armonia General glowed bright, making up for many dead streetlights along the way.

She took a lap around the hospital, pushing until her muscles burned. Her leg was feeling pretty good these days, and in full armor she wasn't worried about the strain. No speed unit. Carolina could run that mod in her sleep anyway. Save it for when she really needed it.

Coming back to the street, she slowed, settling into a more moderate pace for the way back, and a block from the Command Center, brought it down to a jog for cooldown.

Her muscles were warm, her mind a little sleepy, feeling the endorphins from both the run and the really good sex. Probably could get some sleep. Maybe hit the gym first, do a few reps. Make sure she's good and tired.

_Have you even looked at your HUD clock? Go the fuck to sleep._

Hi, Church.

_It's almost 2 AM. Go to bed._

Only 2? I should definitely get some reps in.

_You have an 0800 deployment, remember?_

No, I completely forgot.

_Ha ha._

That's six hours from now.

_Yeah, and for some godawful reason you think you need to be up two hours before breakfast._

She knew she'd _be_ up two hours before breakfast. Might as well make use of the time.

_C, will you please go and get some sleep?_

I'm going, I'm going.

She usually didn't have trouble finding a spare bed in the troops barracks. Wash barely used his own bed, and he probably wouldn't ask questions either, but it hadn't come to that. She was only going to get a few hours' sleep anyway, and after days in the field any kind of a real bed was a luxury, even if she was still sleeping in full armor.

By the time she found her way to a bed, she was tired enough to be out cold in minutes. Which was kind of the point. Church knew that as well as she did.

It wasn't dreams exactly. Nightmares she knew about. She'd had those. About Sigma, about Maine, about what happened to him… ever since. They hadn’t gone away since she came out of hiding, but they’d gotten less frequent.

You don't have to wake up screaming and thrashing around to feel something troubling your sleep, to dread closing your eyes, lying awake in the dark with nothing but the noise in your own head.

_You good, C?_

Go to sleep.

_You go to sleep._

She slept. But it was still there. Not in dreams, but… underneath. She could feel it when she woke up, even the mornings she slept soundly, when she didn't wake drenched in a cold sweat with her lungs tight and her heart trying to batter its way out of her chest.

It was something like the twitch in all of her limbs after running the speed unit—like restless legs, only all over. Something pushing her to movement. And with it, something like that feeling of being watched, only it was the burn of an unseen gaze in her own head. A nameless, creeping dread she had to move to escape. Slept restless too, moving a lot. No reason to bother Vanessa with that.

Soon as she was awake, she was up and moving, off to the mess for early coffee and on to the training room for drills. No point in trying to fall asleep again.

Some of it is implantation side effects, maybe. AI do weird things to the brain, Dr. Grey says. Open the neural pathways. Something like that. She's had Epsilon a lot longer now than she ever had Eta and Iota, and anyway they were… different.

People always ask if it’s weird, having an AI consciousness in your head, mingled with your own, and yeah, sure, it’s weird sometimes. Most people are polite enough not to ask about specifics. God knows Tucker's never been _most people._

“So are you like, in there when she and Kimball are banging?” Tucker asked Church that morning in the mess, like she wasn’t sitting right there.

“Tucker,” she growled.

“What? Was that like, a secret?”

“_Tucker.”_

“Oh my god,” Epsilon said. “Don’t make me think about it.”

“So you _are_ in there when—”

“He goes offline,” Carolina said shortly, “not that it’s any of your business.”

"Hey, I was just curious! Just asking for like, science or whatever."

"I don't ask you and Wash about _your_ sex life," Carolina said dryly.

"Yeah, well, I don't have another person sharing my brain twenty-four-sev—heyyy, who told you about that?"

Carolina smirked. "You just did."

"Fuck."

_"So,"_ said Wash rather emphatically, dropping his breakfast tray beside Tucker with a little too much force. "How're those away missions?"

"The missions are good," Carolina said, suppressing a snicker.

"Great missions," Tucker said. "Awesome. You know. Just keepin' it professional."

Wash shot Tucker a sidelong look, but Carolina could tell he was fighting a smile. "Great," he said, diving into his oatmeal. "Glad to hear it."

Tucker wasn't the only one who figured them out. Carolina had been kind of avoiding Kimball's Major General ever since she made the mistake of asking about Marri’s military history back at the old base. Marri’s response had been more than a little cold, and they hadn’t been shy about making known their disdain for the UNSC.

“Don’t take it personally,” Kimball told her, later, when Carolina mentioned the exchange. “Marri’s… protective. Enlisting got them away from a pretty bad home situation, and when the UNSC pulled out of Chorus, well… they took it hard. Defected to the New Republic after the remaining Supply Corps were folded into the Federal Army. Marri’s been through a lot, but they’re a good person. Loyal. They’ve been at my side since I became General.”

Loyal, Carolina could definitely see. She could see too that Marri took a lot of weight off Kimball, dealing with administrative tasks and commanding the senior officers so Kimball could focus on the hard work of negotiating all the messy details of their alliance with the Doyle. She didn’t doubt Marri cared about Kimball. She just wondered if there was room for her in that.

She did try again, once, in the mess hall over breakfast. Maybe breakfast was the mistake. Carolina knows she can be intense in the morning. Fresh off her first training session, freshly caffeinated. Maybe she came on too strong.

“Hey,” she said, approaching the table where Marri and Kimball typically sat. Kimball wasn’t there yet, probably stuck in an early meeting with Doyle. “Mind if I sit?”

Marri gave a brusque nod. “Please.”

“Thanks.” Carolina set down her tray and started tearing open a protein bar, mostly to have something to do with her hands. She missed fruit. Fresh produce was hard to come by on Chorus. Back on the _Invention_, she used to start every day with an orange or half a grapefruit. “Kimball in a meeting?”

Marri’s dark eyes flicked up from their oatmeal. “You haven’t seen her this morning, I take it?”

Carolina had no idea what _that_ was supposed to mean, so she just replied, “Not yet. I’ve been in the training room.”

Marri took a bite and chewed with conspicuous thoughtfulness, and Carolina ate her protein bar and drank her coffee and tried not to feel like she was being observed. There was something familiar in those sharp eyes. Not so much like her father, not the scientist’s smugly detached curiosity, but something. If nothing else, she certainly felt held at arms’ length for some kind of inspection.

The lull was long enough that Carolina had sort of stopped waiting for a verbal response and gone back to focusing on eating when Marri said, suddenly, “Yeah. I’m sure she’s stuck in the war room. Doyle’s been stonewalling her. Like he would know strategy from a horse’s ass."

Carolina nearly snorted black coffee up her nose, and took a glance around the mess to make sure no Feds were in earshot. “Yeah. I gather things have been… difficult.”

Marri sighed, and for a moment, it seemed like they might be letting their guard down a little. “He’s infuriating. I don’t know how Kimball deals with it, but that’s why she’s the leader and not me.”

Carolina nodded. “She’s a good leader. If anyone can make this work, it’s her.” She hesitated, then added, “I know you take a lot of weight off her shoulders.”

Marri shrugged. “It’s nothing. After what she’s done for me, for _us.__”_

“For the New Republic, you mean.”

“Yes. And for me personally, but—yes.” Marri’s eyes met Carolina’s over their tea mug, and Carolina could smell cinnamon and strong black tea, the same kind Vanessa liked. “Kimball may not be the best General we’ve had. But she’s the best leader. You understand the difference?”

“I do,” Carolina said, and felt as though she should say something else. It seemed like they were getting along. But there was an uneasiness in the pit of her stomach she couldn’t quite shake.

“She’s a good person,” Marri said, eyes boring into Carolina’s. “In ways you don’t even know. Vanessa Kimball is one of the best people I have ever known. And if you do right by her, I’ll have no problem with you. But you bring her to harm, Freelancer, and I promise you I will end you myself. I don’t care what kind of hero you are.”

Carolina set down her coffee mug and stared for a good minute before she managed a response. “I’m not any kind of hero.”

Marri nodded. “Good.” And then they smiled, so suddenly and disarmingly Carolina felt almost dizzy.

If the Major General didn’t already despise Carolina, maybe _this_ will be the thing that does it. Abandoning her team because she took the enemy’s bait. Probably exactly the kind of thing Marri would expect of her. Agent Carolina, the ex-supersoldier, the lone wolf who can’t be trusted.

Maybe Marri was right.

"One more time."

"You said 'one more time' five times ago."

"We're almost there."

"Almost _where,_ Carolina? We've already shaved almost a full second off the deployment time—"

"And if we shave off another 20th of a second, we'll _be_ there. One more time."

Carolina was interrupted by what sounded like a crash from inside the Charon outpost. She rolled her eyes. "Belay that." Over the radio: "Grif, Simmons, what's going on in there?"

"Nothing!" came Simmon's reply, of which Carolina felt more than a little suspicious. "Just inventorying the weapons cache."

"You could transport the cache _back_ to base," said Carolina pointedly, "and inventory it there."

"And risk throwing off the spreadsheets?!" Simmons said, horrified.

She made a face. "Never mind."

She and Epsilon ran a few more stationary tests with the bubble shield. The numbers were good, she knew that, but that full second kept evading her. It was _close_, every time, and Epsilon was getting good at responding to the initial mental and physical cues rather than waiting for her verbal commands.

But it could still have been better.

Carolina had never run a shield mod in Freelancer. She'd had some familiarity with them, of course, from working with her teammates, but she hadn't worked as closely with North, and the other shield enhancement was—

well, it was Maine's.

The overshield worked differently. It was a modulating energy shield providing an extra layer of protection to the armor itself, fragmenting incoming projectiles and deflecting plasma fire. Small caliber rounds would disintegrate before they could even touch the armor, and even large caliber would fracture and have their impact dampened.

If Maine had been running his overshield on the freeway that day—well, she'd thought about that. She'd thought about that so many times since that day.

Carolina took a deep breath, spread her arms wide and deployed the shield, coming in just .01 seconds short of her target time.

"Again," she said. "And this time, let's try it in motion."

The benefit of the overshield was it just followed you, like another layer of armor. Much more flexible, though with less stopping power than the domed energy shields given to the Dakota twins in Freelancer.

The overshield without an AI to run it was less effective and prone to shorting out your force amps, not exactly something you wanted happening in the field—especially if, like Maine, your primary strength _was_ force. The bubble shield without an AI could kill you. If the shield generator destabilized—and the armor-mounted versions were notoriously unstable—the dome could collapse inward on the user, causing catastrophic injury. They lost at least one agent that way, in a training incident. (The Director disliked the term "accident," as it suggested that no one was at fault.)

Even with an AI—in all honesty Carolina would have preferred the overshield, for its greater flexibility. So far, none of their missions had turned up a Charon version of that mod. Still, she was glad to have whatever they advantages they could get. And the bubble shield was an undeniable advantage.

"Hard right! Cover!"

Epsilon's reaction times stayed solid on the move, and with sudden course corrections, which was encouraging. A shield that would slow her down in battle was worse than no shield at all. She had to be able to move.

"What about radial control?" she asked. "How big can we go?"

"What are you trying to fit in there?"

Carolina snickered. "Good thing Tucker's off on that field trip."

"Yeah yeah, very funny. What kind of radius you want?"

"How big _can_ it go? Like, how many people can I cover if I need to?"

"Let's find out."

They ran some controlled, stationary radius tests. North, of course, had put a bubble shield around a Pelican a once. The Charon model had a comparable max radius, though her HUD started flashing destabilization warnings before they got there. The warnings were automated; Epsilon could get a more precise read on the state of the shield generator, and cut the power well before the risk of collapse.

She was pleased with the results. Still, numbers weren't everything.

"Grif, Simmons. I need you out here."

"That sounds suspiciously like work," said Grif.

"No work. I just need you to stand over here."

"Yeah, Grif," Epsilon teased, "think you can handle some standing?"

"If you weren't a hologram," Grif said, "I would sit on you."

"Come sit out here," Carolina said. "Seriously. Two minutes."

"We need to get these weapons back to base," Simmons said. "I'm all finished with the spreadsheets!"

Carolina rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling at the satisfaction in Simmons' voice. "Come stand here for me for two seconds and then you can teleport back to base."

The shield accommodated three people easily, and Carolina was sure it could accommodate a lot more if needed. Granted, she didn't really need test subjects for that. There was just something comforting about seeing it—knowing that in a pinch, she could put a bubble around her whole team. Keep them safe.

"Good work," she said, and winked at Grif, and shooed them off to transport the weapons home.

"Think you could give me speed and shield together?"

She felt Epsilon balk, slightly. "No speed unit, remember? Doctor's orders."

"But if we _need_ it. Can you run both?"

"I mean—yeah, I can run two mods at once, though we'll have to really watch your proximity. But seriously, C. Last resort. Don't want to—"

"My leg's fine. I've been running on it." That was the truth. It was fine. As long as she could still push through the pain, it was fine. Icing it later helped keep the swelling down. Anyway it wasn't so bad as long as she was in armor.

"_Normal _speed running."

"My running speed is _normal?_ I'm offended."

"Carolina…"

"_Yes,_ Church. Last resort. But it's there if we need in. We need all the advantage we can get."

"Yeah," Church said, and she felt his presence in her mind kind of lean into hers, warm with affection. "If we need it, it's there. I got you."

She grinned. "I know you do. Let's go again—"

The words died on her lips just as she felt the jolt of Epsilon in her mind, startled wordless by the same sight that had caught her eye. A brilliant glow from the tower in the distance, flaring from the seams of its strange weightless structure. The same tower where Grey's team—

"Tucker," she called over the radio, "come in Tucker, what the _hell_ was that? Are you all right?"

The relief that flooded her when she heard Tucker's voice was white-hot as the burst of light.

"Yeah," Tucker said, "we're fine, but—something just happened."

"No kidding."

She could hear Dr. Grey shrieking in the background, though it was kind of hard to make out words. "Is the _doctor_ okay?"

Tucker snorted. "Debatable. Listen, we're heading back to your location and then we can all report back to base. This is big, Carolina."

"It looked big."

"Bow chicka bow wow. Anyway, hang tight. We'll be right there."

Dr. Grey was practically walking on air when she and the team returned, talking a mile a minute about _emergence_ and _phenomena_ and other things Carolina had little context for. She remembered what the doctor had said earlier about the towers _emerging_ from the ground shortly after the UNSC pulled out—something she hadn't really absorbed at the time.

_How has she not run out of oxygen yet?_

A few hours ago you were complaining about no one on the planet taking this stuff seriously.

_I'm just saying._

"Weapons," Tucker said. "All kinds of plasma rifles and shit. Those purple plane things. There was a whole _arsenal."_

Carolina stared. "Functional?"

"Kind of?" Tucker said.

"What's _kind of?"_

"Well—I think we have to do something else to activate them permanently?" Tucker said, "Maybe? It showed us a map. With coordinates. See?"

The map popped up in Carolina's HUD, and she studied it, Epsilon's attention mingling with her own. "That's not more than a day trip by air," Epsilon pointed out. "We could head straight there."

Carolina nodded slowly. "I'm tempted, but we should report in to Kimball first. Let her know what we found."

_Riiiight. That's the only reason you want to call Kimball._

Epsilon!

She understood Church's excitement though, and it bled into her own as they regrouped inside the research facility and radioed Armonia. The coordinates would take them up the coast, to an area southwest of Crash Site Bravo. An unexplored region, deep in unsettled jungle territory, according to the maps they'd pulled from the city computers.

Those coordinates could be anything. Another research center or alien construct, something that could give them a real advantage in this war.

But the full extent of what the team had found out there didn't sink in until the call from the Reds.

"What the hell did you all _do?"_ Simmons squawked over the radio, clearly rattled.

"Simmons," Dr. Grey said, sounding more serious that Carolina had heard, and more urgent at that. "I need you to send me your helmet footage. Right now."

What the footage looked like was chaos. It was hard to make out exactly what was happening, but Carolina picked up the essentials—the plasma rifle in Donut's hands going off, Simmons shrieking and ducking for cover, a heap of alien weapons that _seemed_ to be firing off on their own in and out of frame, explosions off-screen.

But what caught Carolina's attention was the rare and reverent silence from Dr. Grey, her hands clasped to her breastplate.

"My _goodness,"_ she whispered. "It's real. Another phenomenon."

"Doctor?" Carolina said, cautiously.

And just as suddenly, the doctor seemed to bounce back. "Eureka!" she shrieked. "Call the war room! I need Doyle this instant!"

"Emily," the general stammered, bewildered. "Please! Slow down!"

Dr. Grey would not be slowed down. It was sort of awe-inspiring to watch, Carolina had to admit, even if she didn't understand half of what the doctor was saying. Her excitement was contagious.

"Well, whatever Tucker did caused all of our teleportation grenades to explode, fried Charon's weapons, _and_ almost got me killed," Simmons said, still grumpy. "Good going, asshole."

"Actually," Carolina said, "this could be perfect."

"Well," Sarge said thoughtfully, "maybe if Simmons had been replaced with Grif, and instead of _almost_ killed, he was—"

"Stop," Grif said.

"The alien weapons may have been active for a few seconds," Carolina interjected impatiently, "but Charon's hybrid tech is still inoperable." That was one thing she understood.

"Whatever pieces they took from the alien technology and crammed into their own likely short-circuited the equipment when it tried to come back online," Grey explained.

Carolina met Kimball's gaze on the screen for a moment, and Kimball nodded slowly.

"Which means," Sarge crowed, "the space pirates ain't got their fancy lasers no more!"

"Yeah," Grif said, "but neither do we."

"That doesn't matter—" Wash interjected.

"Speak for yourself! That's _two_ badass alien weapons I've lost now—"

"Charon has always had the technological advantage over us," Wash said. "The only reason we've managed to win these last few weeks was because we have them outnumbered."

Wash wasn't wrong. "Outnumbered" was relative, but the Charon bases they'd been taking so successfully in the south were, to a one, undermanned for a full-scale assault. There was a reason they'd been able to take prisoners. Half the staff at the research bases were scientists—not quite civilians, maybe, but certainly unequipped to hold off Alpha Squad. It was clear Charon had been counting on those remote bases staying off the Chorusans' radar, operating untouched.

Not anymore.

"And yet," Doyle said, "we still lose troops with every victory."

"True," Kimball said, "but now we have them outnumbered _and_ outgunned. Without their toys they've got nothing more than standard UNSC weaponry. It's an even playing field."

"You know," Simmons said, "I've been working with weapons a lot lately, and I'd just like to point out that the _standard_ UNSC weaponry? Can still put a fucking hole in your skull."

_Someone's cranky,_ Epsilon muttered.

"We've also yet to encounter Locus or Felix since they left," Doyle pointed out.

"We'll deal with them when the time comes," Wash said firmly. "Right, Carolina?"

"Right," she said, trying to ignore the thread of unease in her stomach. "Of course."

Church looked at Vanessa, gently drawing Carolina's attention back to her. "What are you thinking, Kimball?"

Kimball wanted Alpha. The tractor beam tower, a way off the planet. A ship to bring them help from outside.

Tucker wanted to go to those coordinates. And Church agreed—maybe a little too much, in hindsight.

"One tower took out all of Charon's weapons! There's no telling what another one could do!" Carolina could feel his impatience vibrating in her skull. "I mean hell, if it gives us a way to turn the other tower back on, we can add badass alien lasers to the armory? Why else are we in this war?"

Carolina could see Kimball's posture tense.

Fuck's sake, Church.

_What, too much? _

Just… dial it back a few.

"We don't have _time_ to investigate," Kimball said, urgently. Almost pleadingly. "For all we know, Charon's already working on a new batch of rifle replacements."

_I mean, they _would_ be, if we hadn't fuckin' decimated their research bases._

Dial it back, Church.

_What? I didn't say it out loud._

"Don't have time?" Tucker protested. "We can just fly right over and check it out!"

"We already know Locus and Felix have scouts monitoring our activity whenever possible," Wash cautioned. "If we send a ship to the middle of nowhere, they'll notice, and they'll follow."

He was right about that much.

"If these coordinates lead to something," Carolina said, "we _can't_ afford it falling into Charon's hands. We need to send a small team on foot."

Kimball looked her square in the visor. "And that will take time that we don't have."

She got where Kimball was coming from. She really did. Alpha would give them a clear and present strategic advantage. The coordinates were an unknown. Maybe an advantage, maybe not.

But not knowing—that, to Carolina, was a clear liability and one she did not like.

It was Doyle who broke the stalemate. Divide and conquer. A small team to the coordinates with Carolina, the bulk of their troops to Alpha under Kimball's command.

It really did seem like a good idea at the time.

For the first time since they deployed, Aqua Squad would be split up, without Carolina in command. They needed Tucker for the away team—he had the alien sword-key, after all. With them would be Caboose and Dr. Grey. Sarge would be going to Alpha, so at least the squad would have some continuity in leadership.

Truth was, Carolina was going to miss them. They'd come so far since their first mission together.

"You're not coming with us?" said Private Nguyen with some dismay when she broke the news, in the air on the way back to Armonia. No sense delaying the inevitable, and air travel time was good for debriefing.

"Special mission," Carolina said. "Smaller team. We need to move low and quiet. I have the utmost confidence in _all_ of you—as individual soldiers, and as a team. And I expect a glowing report from your Colonel when you all return. Make me proud at Alpha. Understood?"

Nguyen straightened up, and the others with her. "Yes, ma'am!"

Her smile was hidden behind her helmet, but the truth was Carolina was already proud.

They touched down in Armonia just after 0300. Made good time on the ride back, with the winds in their favor. It was that kind of day, she would remember thinking. Everything going their way.

As her squad filed down into the training facility, Carolina hung out for a moment on the roof, looking out over the city. Armonia, once home to—actually, Carolina wasn't sure what Armonia's population had been. Certainly many times what is now the planet's entire population.

Maybe when this was all over, when they'd beaten Charon out and Hargrove was in prison, Chorus would grow to fill this city again. This city, and the others she'd passed abandoned in her travels.

It felt so close, that victory. Close enough to taste on the wind, as a breeze picked up and ruffled her bangs around her face.

She smiled to herself, helmeted up again, and headed down inside to find Vanessa.

It all happened because—

That's the thing. She _really_ doesn't know what the hell she did wrong.

And she's been pushing that night out of her mind ever since, refusing to dwell on the question of what happened because there was never time. There was always something happening _now._ Something urgent, something on which hangs thousands of lives. She just had to lock it down.

So it's just been sitting there, locked down, unopened and unexamined.

It had to have been her fault. Who else's would it have been?

And as the memory seeps through the cracks and worms its way out of the box, it feels like all she can hear in the aching cavern of her skull is her own words, glaring back at her.

_Can you tell me what you're actually worried about?_

_Like it or not, those variables are out there._

_This probably isn't the best time for us to get into it._

What_ was all we had going on?_

_Are we having a fight right now?_

_I'd better go._

Okay, it's not true that she doesn't know what she did. Not exactly. Even thinking about it she can feel her defenses rising, the feeling of silent panic in her chest as Vanessa's questions push into places she doesn't want to, _can't_ go. Not _now._ Not with everything else.

Sometimes you just have to keep things locked down until a better time. Not that Carolina knew when that would be, but there would _be_ a time. Sometime.

She was in this hospital once before. Only a few weeks ago, though it feels like an eternity. Sitting with Vanessa downstairs, waiting for news about Tucker and Wash. It all comes back to her now in spite of herself, along with a hollow feeling in her stomach and a vague feeling of shame that makes her want to curl up into an impenetrable shell.

How could Vanessa have thought she didn't know her? After Carolina told her about CT? And about—well. Some things about Freelancer. Mostly just CT. But—

"I can't stop thinking about it," Kimball said wearily. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to stop thinking about it. How many we lost because I trusted him."

"You weren't the first. He worked with—your predecessors, didn't he?"

Kimball nodded. "Our first leader hired him. Four months before she was killed in action."

Carolina had to take a moment to parse that one. "Killed in—"

"Oh, god." Kimball covers her face with her hands. "I don't even— He was in that battle, but—oh my god. I don't know."

Carolina reached for something comforting to say, and came up empty. What can you even say? _It's not your fault. You can't blame yourself._ She knew exactly how hollow those words would land.

“We were… betrayed by a teammate, once," she said instead, hesitantly. "In Freelancer. Not the same thing, but…”

“Yeah?" Kimball looked up at her. "What happened?”

“She was a mole. Or… something like that. She was really with us, in the beginning. I think. But she turned, started working with the enemy. She got wind of some of the things the program was doing. After, well… I got it. She was probably right. But I always wondered if she would’ve killed us. If it came to that. I don’t know. It’s not really the same.”

Kimball nodded. “Did she ever try to tell you?”

Carolina looked at the gray tiled floor, sighed. “Not really. She'd drop hints, ask questions… kind of an agitator, I guess, but she never came to me directly. I wish she had, but… honestly, I don’t think I would've believed her. Not until it was too late.”

“You would’ve had to believe everyone else you trusted was wrong.” Kimball nodded. “Easier to believe just one person is wrong.”

“Yeah.”

She felt that connection between them, that night. They both did, she was sure of it. After Tucker and Wash were stabilized, after Dr. Grey came to tell them they were both out of the woods, she remembers Vanessa coming back from the vending machine with a paper cup in one hand and a weary smile. "You mentioned you're a coffee drinker."

She remembers the smell of stale hospital vending machine coffee, and she remembers how good it tasted that morning.

She remembers Epsilon sparking awake in her mind with a meaningful nudge, the wordless equivalent of raised eyebrows. _So__…_

Epsilon, she thought, warningly.

Carolina even took her time going further with it. Didn't want to rush things. Wanted to do this one right.

Great work on that one, Carolina. Solid fucking work.

She left Kimball's room, breaking into a run before she hit the street, and pushing her pace to a harder stride once she was on the sidewalk. Hadn't stretched or warmed up—well, not for this. Her muscles protested a little, her leg too. Good. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

_Carolina?_

Church was back online. Must've tracked her leaving the building.

Hey, she thinks. Neutral.

_Hey uh. What's up? You okay?_

I'm fine.

_C._

Epsilon,_ don't._

He acquiesced, for a few blocks. Carolina drove herself deep into the burn of motion. She wasn't headed for the hospital this time. Headed south, into the darker, uninhabited parts of the city. It was fine. Her helmet would light the way.

As the streetlights fell away behind them, Church spoke up again.

_What happened?_

Do you have to fucking ask?

_Carolina, I don't know what that _ _ **means.** _ _ I was offline._

They both knew he was perfectly capable of prying into her memories if he wanted to. Digging out the whole goddamn scene, reliving her every misstep right alongside her. Watching her fuck up. He was choosing not to. And she still felt furious, like he'd already done it.

I don't need you telling me I fucked up too, all right? I know this was a mistake. I knew. I _knew_. I knew the whole time.

Church went quite for a long moment and Carolina listened to her boots beating the pavement. Figured he couldn't argue with that one.

_I wasn't gonna_ _… C, I didn't…_

He didn't have to. It was her own fucking fault to think she could have something like that. She didn't need an AI living in her brain to tell her she was being stupid, and selfish, and distracting herself from the real mission, from what _mattered,_ with something she didn't even know how to keep, never mind deserve.

She woke up sharp at oh-five-hundred, on about three and a half hours sleep, which frankly wasn't bad all things considered. Grabbed some protein bars and a large cup of coffee before the mess officially opened for breakfast.

Specialist Corbin was at the coffee pot when she walked in, and straightened up quickly to attention. "Agent Carolina."

"At ease," Carolina said. Her voice was kind of rough. First words she'd said that morning. Wasn't really expecting to meet anyone else sneaking into the mess early for coffee. Well, anyone other than Wash.

Corbin relaxed a few fractions of a centimeter. "We're—I'm—ah—big day today, ma'am. We'll, um. We'll miss you at Alpha."

Something tightened up in her chest, and Carolina looked away to refill her coffee. "Stick to the plan and trust your orders." She didn't say _You'll be fine._ There was a chance he wouldn't be. You don't lie to your troops if you want their respect. Kimball would agree with that, she thought, offhandedly, before the memory of last night socked her in the stomach again. She took a swallow of coffee to steady herself, bitter and acidic on her tongue, and met Corbin's eyes. "Our odds are good right now. I know it's hard to believe that, but they are. We have a shot. We can do this. General Kimball has a good plan. She knows strategy, and she's going to lead you well."

Corbin swallowed and nodded. He was so young. They all were. Feds and rebels alike.

"I believe in you," Carolina said, and it sounded like someone else. But it was what a good leader would say. "All of you."

She added, just a hint of sternness in her voice, "Make me proud, soldier."

Corbin cracked a smile, clinging to his coffee mug with both hands. "Yes, ma'am."

Carolina smiled back, ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach, and headed off to the Armory to load up her hog and do equipment checks before the rest of the squad arrived to deploy.

They took just two Warthogs, Carolina and Dr. Grey in the lead and Sarge and Tucker bringing up the rear. There was still a chance the mercs would notice their tiny convoy heading into the western wilderness, but with the massive contingent of troops heading for Crash Site Alpha—well, it might actually serve as a pretty good distraction. One more benefit of Doyle's divide-and-conquer strategy. Or so it seemed at the time.

About fifteen minutes into the drive, Carolina started to wonder if she'd chosen the wrong road partner.

This because Dr. Grey hadn't stopped talking for more than thirty seconds since they started moving.

If she's being honest with herself, she was barely following any of it. She tried to listen, she really did, but a lot of it sailed right over her head, and Carolina was just starting to think about asking Dr. Grey if they could have _quiet_ for a while, though sitting in silence with her own thoughts didn't sound fantastic either.

She always liked driving, the rumble of a vehicle over rough ground, wind in your face (or your helmet), pedal under your foot, speed at your fingertips, chasing the long horizon. Easier to dodge her worst thoughts that way, sometimes. But the constant stream of chatter from the doctor was putting her on edge a little, making her feel overstimulated. Tucker was probably in the same boat with Caboose. Should have put _him_ and the doctor together. Of course then she'd have been riding with Tucker, and subject to all the requisite "pick-up" jokes.

She focused on the drive, tried to kind of tune out—until a certain phrase, _emerged from the ground,_ caught her ear.

The towers emerging from the ground. She had a vague recollection the doctor had said something about that before, but with everything else going on—well, it hadn't really stuck.

"Wait, doctor—" Carolina had to kind of interrupt to get a word in, but Grey didn't seem to mind, perking up at signs of interest.

"Yes, dear?"

"Doctor Grey, you said the towers _emerged from the ground. _You mean they weren't always here? They were… what, underground, before?"

"Oh, yes! They were all underground when Chorus was chosen for colonization, and for about two decades following. There were dig sites established all over the planet to try and study the structures but no progress learning their purpose or finding a way inside them. Then the UNSC pulls out, withdraws support and funding, you see, and the towers fall back into the hands of the local government which is now the sole governing body, and wouldn't you know—not a year after the UNSC leaves, the Emergence happens! All over the planet, the towers suddenly activate and rise from the ground, to where they are now! Incredible! And we still don't know for sure what caused it! There are theories, of course, some think the government's loosening of safety protocols at the dig sites might have led to some mechanism being triggered, but there's just no conclusive evidence, especially since all the towers emerged at the same time! It was quite a spectacle, I'm sure." Here Dr. Grey sighed wistfully. "I only wish I could have seen it myself up close! Never got to visit any of the dig sites until after they'd been closed down."

"How does no one talk about this?" Epsilon interjected, popping up over Carolina's shoulder. He'd been listening along with her, silent but intent the whole time.

"I was thinking that," Carolina agreed, bewildered. _"No one_ ever talks about this. Like, the towers just seem so _normal_ to everyone. You're the only person I've even heard mention this—Emergence."

"Well sweetie, you have to understand, there just aren't many left on Chorus old enough to remember much time before! General Doyle does, of course, he was in his thirties at the time, but most of us—well, most of the troops were children. Some were too young to remember at all." Dr. Grey cocked her head thoughtfully at Carolina. "Kinda like, you probably don't remember a time when aliens didn't exist!"

"But people _talk_ about aliens," Carolina countered. You never forgot you were at war.

"Yeah," Epsilon said. "Like, all the time."

"Do they!" Dr. Grey said brightly. "Tell me, Agent Carolina, how much of your life have you spent in the military?"

"_In-_in? Are we counting military school?"

The doctor gave her a look that said Carolina had just made her point for her. "And before that. Your family?"

There was a moment of silence.

"My mother was a Marine," Carolina said stiffly. "She died when I was six."

"My condolences. You understand what I'm saying."

"Everyone's lost people," Carolina said, keeping her voice neutral.

"You see that as normal."

"Well, yes."

"Precisely! Here, near everyone grew up a stone's throw from one of those towers. They're _notable,_ but not _unusual._ People _talk_ about the towers, certainly. But the Emergence to most of them, is just a historical event, a thing that happened. Our government spent a few more years trying to unlock them, or activate them, or discover their purpose. When that failed, they became tourist attractions. But _this_—whatever Tucker's sword unlocked—_this_ is historic, Agent Carolina." Dr. Grey rubbed both hands together with barely contained delight. "We may be on our way to unlocking their secrets as we speak!"

Carolina nodded slowly, adjusting her grip on the wheel. "Let's hope so."

They took a pit stop a few hours in, a quick break to stretch their legs and refuel. Carolina found herself looking up frequently, wondering if any aircraft might have followed, or spotted them. The region west of Armonia was a lot of open land, easily visible from the air, and though they were parked in a thin copse of trees for as much cover as they could manage, they were still relatively exposed and it made her uneasy. She would've preferred they get into the jungle where the vegetation was denser before stopping, but the size of their fuel tanks dictated a stop.

It would have to do.

"Hey, Epsilon."

"What's up, C?"

"Want to run some more equipment training?"

"What," Church said, "right now?"

Carolina shot another glance at the sky. Clear, blue, a few clouds. "Might as well while we're stopped. It's good knowing the bubble shield works, but I still feel like my deployment time could be better."

Church flickered. "Carolina, you're fine. Just relax, all right?"

"But—"

"Hey, hey, Carolina, come on." Church's presence was tense, uneasy, and Carolina felt a twinge in her bad leg as if on cue. "You know how you used to be, okay? You start pushing yourself too far, you're gonna get hurt. And the last thing we need now is another stupid injury. So come on, take it easy. Loosen up."

"Loosen up." Carolina sighed. "Right."

She couldn't help bristling at the accusation—okay, it wasn't an accusation, more of an insinuation, _how you used to be,_ like he really knew—but he wasn't. You know. Entirely wrong.

The not-a-fight with Vanessa still burned in the back of her mind.

Was she really that bad?

_Hey, are you doing okay?_

"Okay," Tucker called, cramming empty fuel cans into the back of the hog, "we're ready to go."

"Oh, badass," Church said. "You filled up our car too?"

"Yeah, I gave it to both of 'em!" Tucker shot back with pride.

"Bow chicka bow-" Carolina blurted, trailing off as helmets turned to stare at her. "What? That's the joke, right?"

"Did she just say my thing?" said Tucker.

"You said to loosen up," Carolina hissed.

"That's uh," Church said, "that's a little too loose. Just tighten that back up a little bit."

"I feel violated!" said Tucker.

She gritted her teeth. "Let's just get moving."

_ **Really?!** _

Church, I swear to god, can you lay off me for one goddamn minute?

Church flinched, and Carolina felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at him.

_Jesus, sorry for trying to help._

It's not—look, let's just drop it. We've got more important things to worry about.

There was a beat of silence before Church replied, _Yeah._

Within an hour of their pit stop, their trek carried them into an ever-thickening jungle, and the sky that had been blue and mostly clear took on a yellow tinge, and grew hazy. A few times, they had to stop the vehicles so Tucker could get out and slash away vines and undergrowth with his energy sword, just to make room for the hogs to pass through, single file.

"How close are we?" Tucker asked.

"You have the coordinates in your HUD," Carolina said tersely.

"Jeez, testy. I was just making conversation."

Carolina took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"We're close," Epsilon said, and they were, so close that their marker on her HUD mini-map nearly overlaid the marker for the coordinates. Though with the map scaled down, that's sometimes misleading.

Tucker's question was understandable. She shouldn't have snapped at him. "Nothing on visual yet, but this jungle's dense." Noisy, too. There was sort of a constant buzzing and chirping—birds, insects, amphibians, Carolina supposed. She thought of Kimball's story, the creature who gave her those scars on her face—she couldn't remember the name, now. Somehow that hurt as much as it did thinking of Kimball's face, and her chest tightened a little.

Lock it down, Carolina. You're on a mission.

Epsilon nudged her. _You okay?_

I'm good, Church.

"Something on visual," Carolina said, peering through the trees. "Something—glowing."

"Shit," Tucker said over the radio, a little breathlessly, and as both vehicles pulled out into the clearing, she could see why.

Spread before them was an alien structure. Smaller than the towers they'd seen, and sitting on the ground rather than floating, though unmistakably alien in its construction. But what her drew her attention first, and no doubt Tucker's too, was the glow. A beam of yellow light shooting straight up through a gap in the structure's floor, as though emitted by something unseen below.

"These energy readings!" Dr. Grey squealed, scrambling out of the Warthog. "I _knew_ it!"

"Knew what?" Carolina said, killing the engine and hopping out of the hog. "You knew this was here?"

"Well, of course dear, I knew there was an excavation site in this region, spent a lot of time out here during grad school, you know, and some weekends during my residency, but I didn't have the exact coordinates, so I only _suspected,_ but it _is. _That energy, though! _That_ wasn't there before!"

Carolina eyed the pillar of light. "Is that… plasma?"

"Temperature readings would indicate: nope! It's something else!"

Tucker was already running for the pillar of light. "Ho-ly _shit."_

"I think it's safe to say we're here," Epsilon said, as Carolina caught up to him. He sounded uneasy, and Carolina had to agree.

"And not a moment too soon," she said, and her eyes followed the pillar of light where it stretched into the sky. There was something undeniably unsettling about the whole thing. The structure, this clearing in the dense jungle, the quiet of the surrounding area. Even the sounds of wildlife seemed to have died down in range of the structure.

"What _is_ this place?" Tucker said, craning his neck. Though the structure was shorter than the ones they'd seen before, it still rose several stories above them, with multiple floors.

"That's _exactly_ what we're about to find out!" Dr. Grey chirped, whipping out her scanner and heading for the ground level, where Carolina could see some kind of alien text etched into the walls. "This _could_ take some time. You all might want to get comfortable!"

In hindsight, she should never have let Tucker go in first. God, that was stupid. Sure, Dr. Grey had taken the time to translate the text, and she seemed pretty confident in her reading of the structure's function and purpose, but _still._ Anything could've happened in there, he could've been _killed_, and she just let him—

But Tucker wanted to prove himself, and Carolina thought—well, she thought it was cute.

He was lucky. The energy beam—portal—whatever it was—showed him a vision and tossed him back out, a little shaken but unharmed.

So she figured he'd had his turn, and now it was hers.

The first thing she noticed inside the portal was silence.

It felt like nothing—_looked_ like nothing, but the faint sound of insects and birds vanished in an instant, like she'd stepped into a vacuum.

The darkness took form around her—ground under her feet, faint outlines of interior structure around her, still alien, washed in dim blue light.

"Epsilon, are you seeing this?"

Silence all around her—and silence inside her head. Not only silence, but _emptiness_. Like he'd been pulled. Like he was _gone._ Cold laced itself through her veins, though her bones.

_Church?_

"Who… are… you?"

Carolina raised her rifle, tightening her grip. Lock it down, chin up, breathe. Confidence. It was a _test._ Of course she had to pass it alone.

"I'm your True Warrior."

"Actually," came a voice that flooded her with adrenaline even before she could process it, "that would be me."

Another form out of the darkness. This one, infuriatingly familiar.

_"Tex?"_

If Church had been there, he would've been reacting to _that_ for sure. But there was nothing, not even a flicker.

Just a test. It was just a test.

Then, so quietly it was almost imperceptible, yet reverberating in the silence, came a low, familiar growl.

Her _No_ caught in her throat as colors flared out of the dark.

It's a test. It's a test. It's—

It was all of them.

Just lined up in a row, staring at her, her whole squad—South, Wyoming, North, York, Florida. Connie. And there in his white armor emanating a soft unearthly glow, his favorite weapon in his hands, Maine.

Maine.

Her chest felt constricted, like she couldn't breath. Like the gravity had just increased tenfold, crushing her breath right out of her. She couldn't think, couldn't find words. Didn't know who she'd be speaking to if she even could speak.

A sound grew in her ears, faint and high-pitched. A staticky, garbled sound of someone talking over it, words she couldn't quite make out as the first sound grew to a screech, like—

like the sound of a ship tearing through atmo.

She looked down, and her breath caught in her throat. Tex, who had been standing before her with that goddamned confident swagger, is crumpled on the ground, motionless, her black armor battered and broken—how?

I didn't do anything, she thought wildly, and felt an irrational surge of guilt, I didn't—

Rifle fire pocked York's breastplate, dropping him to the ground.

Stop it—

South collapsed, a single shot through her visor. North fell, and Florida, and Wyoming, a line of searing white energy glowing for a moment across his chest. CT staggered, and clutched her breastplate as it bloomed red, cleaved by an unseen blade.

And Maine.

Maine just stared at her. Still, silent. Reflected deep in the curve of his gold visor, a smear of red flame. Sigma's fire, or her own hair—she couldn't even tell.

She couldn't scream. She couldn't move.

Maine.

He jerked forward, and fell in utter silence, fell and fell into white nothing and still she couldn't scream.

Everything went white, and she thought, It's over. It's over. It's not real. Please let it be over.

"Carolina?"

Tucker, thank god. She caught her breath suddenly, felt it rush back into her lungs. Tucker in his bright aqua armor, Caboose in vivid blue. It was over. She'd made it out. Sarge was there in blazing red, Donut and Grif and Simmons—

Oh no. No no no, they weren't here. The Reds didn't come with the away team, the Reds were at Crash Site Alpha.

…_Was _this Crash Site Alpha? She had a vague impression of some structure towering overhead, but it all seemed muted, somehow. Distant. And too silent.

This still wasn't real. She was still in the trial.

But what was she supposed to _do?_

"Tucker?" she called, and her voice came this time, but now Tucker wasn't responding.

Oh no.

"Hey, boss." Wash's voice jarred her, and she thought, absurdly: He wasn't with the others, he's not dead. Wash wasn't dead. He was alive. He was okay—

It wasn't real.

"Wash?"

She turned in the direction of his voice, but his gray armor was crumpled on the ground, scuffed and battered, his helmet cracked, and there was blood.

She tried to call his name, but her voice was gone again.

"Carolina!"

The voice came from a distance. Too far to reach, too far to run. No time to stop what invisible force struck Vanessa from behind, like a blade in her back, her tan and bright blue armor jerking with the shock and then falling lifeless to the ground.

She whirled back toward Tucker, in time to see red bloom from his gut, and Tucker drop to his knees in the dirt.

No no no—

The Reds dropped one by one, Sarge and Simmons and Grif as though in a hail of rifle fire unseen and unheard. A blast like a grenade cratered the side of Donut's helmet. Doc's armor glowed bright as an incineration beam, and in an instant he was gone, like he was never there.

"Carolina?"

One lonely voice, someone alive.

Caboose stood there, looking around at the bodies of their friends, and then back to her in confusion. Waiting for her to make it right.

She wanted to run to him, wanted to call his name, tell him to look out, but she was still frozen—

Rifle fire pocked Caboose's breastplate, and he fell.

"Carolina?" Church was saying. "Carolina, are you okay? What happened?"

She braced herself.

It's not real. It's not real.

What was she supposed to _do?_ It wasn't real, but where was the test, what was the enemy, what was she supposed to defeat to _stop_ this? If it wasn't Tex, what was it? Where were the mercs? Where was the threat?

What _was_ the fucking test?

"Carolina, talk to me."

She blinked a few times.

The alien temple. The beam of light. The dense jungle, the water rippling against the shore not far away. The hazy yellow sky.

"I'm—" she said, and her voice was back, and the others were there. Tucker, Caboose, Grey. Epsilon hovering inches from her face. All of them alive, staring at her with a mixture of confusion and alarm.

"I'm fine," she said, and even though it should've been a relief, something sank in her chest.

The test was over. She was back outside.

Which meant she'd failed.

How had she failed?

It wasn't _fair._ The test hadn't given her anything to _fight._ What was she supposed to have done?

"What happened in there?" Church said. "What'd you see? The mercs?"

"I—no," she said, haltingly. "It wasn't the mercenaries. It was—"

_Carolina?_

She shook her head. "It was the Freelancers. It's—it's not important. I don't want to talk about it."

"The Freelancers!" Dr. Grey trilled, with an enthusiasm that had Carolina physically restraining herself from punching the doctor in the face. _"Fascinating!_ What else can you tell us? Did they say anything? What happened?"

She gritted her teeth. "I _said_ I don't want to talk about it."

"Carolina, all I saw when I went through was static," Epsilon pressed, and she could feel his frustration, pushing against the boundary between their minds. "You gotta tell us more! You saw the Freelancers, then what happened? Was there crazy karate? Big gunfight?"

"No, there was no fighting. They just…" Caboose and Tucker were looking at her. _Everyone_ was looking at her, like she had _answers._ "Look, it doesn't matter."

It didn't matter. She'd failed. They didn't need to know anything more than that.

"See?" Tucker said. "Not as easy as it looks, huh?"

"I will throw your ass _right back through that portal_ if you don't—"

"Okay!" Dr. Grey broke in. "Happy thoughts! Happy thoughts."

"Man, whatever," Tucker muttered, and Carolina felt another stab of guilt. He wasn't any happier about failing the test than she was. What the hell was wrong with her today?

She needed to get it together.

Frustration was the general mood of the place. Evidence of the Chorus government's failed attempts to study the tower were scattered around the site—crates, equipment, UNSC lettering long-faded. Earlier she'd stepped on the dusty remains of a plastic field ration packet. One of the crates bore a note reading, _Will return in: FUCK YOU!_

That they weren't the first group to be stonewalled by this place wasn't much comfort, and the Reds and Blues were getting on Carolina's last nerve at that moment. "Will return in: FUCK YOU" was starting to sound like a more reasonable option than standing around arguing about what to do.

"I just wish the inscriptions weren't so vague," Epsilon muttered, protecting his hologram over to the far wall. "True Warrior? Mental clarity? What does that even _mean?"_

"Uh, yeah," Caboose chimed in helpfully. "I'm pretty sure it's the opposite of false warrior. Duh."

She could feel Epsilon's annoyance rising. Or maybe it was just amplified by her own. "Caboose, not now."

"Yeah, I'm just saying—we can at least cross that off the list. You know."

"Caboose," Carolina said warningly.

"The false warrior, that is."

A chorus of voices snapped,_"Caboose!"_

"Well, excuse me for trying to help!" Caboose huffed loudly. "I am going to find the bathroom!" He stomped off.

Epsilon sighed irritably. "Jesus, that empty headed little… wait a minute."

No.

_Yeah._

"Empty head," Epsilon said aloud.

The whole group exchanged a look.

"No way," Tucker said.

"Uh," said Epsilon. "Should we like, tell him…?"

Everything she'd just seen flashed behind Carolina's eyes. "Caboose, _wait,_ don't—"

But of course, it was half a second too late, and Caboose had already wandered straight into the portal.

_Carolina, I think he might_ _… actually be fine._

But what if he's _not?_ Church, what I saw in there…

_What exactly _ _ **did** _ _ you see? _ _…Carolina?_

She sleeps like shit in the hospital.

The hospital doesn't sleep at all.

By now the wounded have been brought back from Crash Site Alpha, those they were able to extract. Carolina realizes now why they've spilled onto the second and third floors. There are a lot of wounded. Certainly there are even more dead.

She wonders how many of Aqua Squad made it home.

Carolina sighs, lying on her side in the bed, trying her damnedest to follow doctor's orders. Trying to _get some rest._ The pain's a lot better at least, and the dizziness too, though that might just be from staying horizontal. She's slept a little—an hour or so, maybe, on and off. It's not her injuries keeping her awake. Not Epsilon, who's been remarkably quiet, trying to let her rest probably.

It's not even really the noise, though there's a fair amount of that from the corridor, and no way to block it out. Carts and gurneys rattling by, voices of nurses and medics. Wonder how well the combined medical staff are getting along. Better than the soldiers, probably. Though she's heard the New Republic's head medic, Violet, mutter about "that Fed bonecutter" when she thinks no one's listening.

Funny, that after the 72 hours she's had, she's starting to feel kind of… _defensive_ of Dr. Grey. But the doctor saved her life, saved all their lives at the Temple of Trials. She's strange, sure. Off-putting. A lot, sometimes. But she's smart and a quick thinker, and without her—

god, she doesn't want to think about what might have happened. She's already seen it play out before her in vivid color. She doesn't need to imagine.

In her gut she knew, as soon as the pirates surrounded them, that Kimball and the Alpha contingent were driving into a trap. Even before the leader in red and black issued that taunting remark, _I hope you said something meaningful the last time you saw them._

Kimball made it out, of course. Rationally Carolina knows she's probably seen far worse situations. But in the pit of her stomach, locked down where it could not break her resolve but always _there,_ always present, was that stony likelihood that Vanessa was going to die, and her last memory of Carolina would be of her Freelancer walking out on her. Letting her down when she needed her.

Not being whatever it was she needed—

_I'd better go._

—and then pulling reinforcements away from her when she needed them the most.

Kimball is alive, but god only knows how many people they lost at Alpha because Doyle split their backup, and he didn't even split it _correctly_, and now—

and now the mercs have the _fucking_ Key, all because General Doyle couldn't follow simple goddamn directions… yeah, in that moment she heard Delta-Five's extraction call over the radio, Carolina _fully_ understood why Vanessa had been so frustrated with Doyle.

But it wasn't his fault. Not really. Not entirely. Either way, their forces would've been split, all because Carolina was stupid enough to let her squad get ambushed and the enemy steal their intel.

Doyle might have physically lost the Key, but pulling reinforcements from Alpha, delaying their retreat—that's on her.

And if she'd done things right on the mountain, maybe he never would've lost the Key at all.

There was no stopping the fall this time.

No split-second impulse, no reaching for her grappler to catch herself on the ice before she hit the ground. Why didn’t she? It all happened so _fast._ One minute Epsilon was there, stabilizing her armor and running the healing unit and mapping out moves three steps ahead and then he just—

He was gone.

They never just go dark, is the thing. Not unless you pull them completely, and even then—

She can still feel the circuitous path of the Twins from time to time—a shadow of them, a whisper of their voices. She felt that after the cliff, the first cliff, and in the years after. But with Epsilon, now, she feels it more.

She wishes she could feel more of a shadow of Iota, sometimes. Io was quiet. Didn’t talk a lot, but she saw things. Saw what Sigma would do, right before he did it. Pushed that spark, that impulse, into Carolina’s brain and into her muscles and put her hand to her hip and possibly saved her life.

Epsilon isn’t like them, but he remembers them, and she feels it sometimes, him trying to do what they did. That was her mistake too. Trying to run every enhancement she could get her hands on, and pushing Epsilon, even snapping at him once or twice when he was whining about her rigorous training schedule.

But what else was she supposed to do? She _had_ to stay in shape, she couldn’t let herself get sloppy, especially out here—they were going to need everything they had to win this thing, and she needed every resource at her disposal, and she needed _him._

She needed him, and suddenly he wasn’t there.

It all went so quick—losing her footing in the snow, feeling herself skidding to the edge, and right there, where the ground dropped out from under her, that’s where it all slowed down.

She could see the black and red helmet, watching her fall.

She felt that drop in her stomach, the emptiness in her skull and for a moment it wasn’t Church’s absence but the Twins, the absence she has quietly felt for years, and for a moment the face watching her fall wasn’t red and black, but gold and white.

This time, she couldn’t catch herself.

This time it was over. This was it, wasn’t it? Falling again, failing her team, dying in the snow and ice the way Maine died, and in that moment it felt like everything had been leading up to this.

Like maybe she was supposed to die out there, in the snow.

She doesn’t remember hitting the ground.

She just remembers waking up here, with Epsilon calling her name, the weight of all her fuck-ups sitting heavy on her chest like the weight of inevitability, and realizing it wasn't even over. That she had to wake up, get up, and face all of that down.

And with one hell of a headache to boot.

Maybe there was no stopping any of it.

The mountain. The battle in the ice. Doyle getting the sword. All of _that_ happened because she ran off alone. But what was she _supposed_ to do, let the Charon mercenary get to it first? The Reds and Blues _couldn__’t_ have kept up with her. She had equipment they didn’t have, equipment they couldn’t have _run_ even if they’d had it. If she’d hesitated, even for a moment—

but she didn’t get to the Key first.

She let herself get lured away. That was the goal all along, and she was an idiot not to see it. Why else would he have goaded her like that?

God, she’s so stupid.

But at least there, she can see her mistake.

With Vanessa, she knows she’s screwed everything up, and not only does she not have _any_ idea how to fix it, she has no idea what she could’ve done differently.

How could Vanessa not have known how she felt? She’s given her all for Chorus. Hasn’t she? Yeah, she fucked up, but… that’s not why Vanessa’s mad at her.

How could she not know? What is it she thinks Carolina’s holding out on her?

And just like before she can see the arc of things to come, the trajectory several steps ahead. Except his time it’s everything falling apart in her hands. And there’s no stopping that, either.

Eventually she sinks into a restless, broken sleep. The hospital sounds work their way into her head, and she dreams she's awake and wandering the halls, trying to find her way out, but the elevator isn't there, and she walks the wing end to end trying to figure out where it's gone. But by then the hospital isn't the hospital, and its white and lavender walls have melted into the gray and tan of the command center, and now she's trying to find Vanessa, whose voice she swears she can hear somewhere, a long way off. But every room she opens is empty, and evacuation notices glare at her from every blue computer screen.

When she wakes for real, a meal tray has been left by her bed. Carolina's head is thick with sleep, she's disoriented and has no idea what meal it is, but there's a protein bar and that's good enough to sate the hollowness in her stomach for now.

"Hey, sleepyhead."

Carolina reaches for the bottled water and downs a few longs swallows. "How long was I asleep?"

Church snorts affectionately as his hologram comes to life. "Not long enough."

"It's gonna have to be."

"Feeling any better?"

Carolina rolls her shoulders. Her back is full of tingles and the faint residual heat of the healing unit. "Yeah. Let's get out of here."

"Well I mean—don't you think you ought to at least check in with the doctor?"

A streak of purple goes tearing past her door, cursing in a low voice that seems… familiar. "Your prognosis is hogwash! Your medical practice is positively asinine! I will destroy you all!"

"Tell me more about your feelings!" Dr. Grey squeals, tearing after him, their footsteps receding again down the hall.

"Frank!" comes Donut's voice, and that pink armor jogs past her door. "Wait!"

"Still think I should talk with the doctor?" Carolina said dryly.

"Yeah, uh," Epsilon said. "I mean. It's probably fine. "Let's just get going."

Epsilon is holding something back on her.

She can feel it, and she knows he's doing it on purpose because it's pretty much the same thing she does, with… certain memories. Just keeps them at the back, while he's online. Things he doesn't need to see, and she doesn't particularly need to think about either.

He's been like this since she first woke up, or at least she thinks so… it's hard to say, with her head so hazy. But he's been speaking mostly through his hologram, holding his thoughts back from hers. And there are some things nagging at her, too. More than just that _failing AI _remark, though how her enemy would know to say something like that is definitely eating at her too.

Something's wrong. And she needs to nail it down so they can get back to work.

She makes sure to actually collect her weapons this time, and checks that her armor's all locked on properly. Her back's better, head's tolerable, leg… hurts. Maybe she can grab some painkillers on their way out.

The commotion has traveled ahead of them to the lobby. She steps off the elevator just in time to witness Dr. Grey shrieking "We've got a runner!" and tearing off after Doc again, brandishing her medical scanner.

"Finally!" Epsilon crows. "Some freakin' quiet! Hey, wanna see if she left her prescription pad?"

"We need to talk," says Carolina.

"Oh," Epsilon said. "Uh. Yeah. Can we at least do it when you're on heavy sedatives?"

Carolina sighs. "Come on. We're taking a walk."

She almost heads for the roof of the training facility. Vanessa's thinking spot. Bad idea, obviously—she doesn't need to run into Vanessa right now. Still, it's a nice place.

Out the eastern side of the hospital, there's a quiet grassy spot overlooking a narrow canyon with a lake at the bottom. She could see it from her room. Figured there was a way to get out there, and after taking a few wrong turns, she finds a door that leads out that way.

The edge of the city. A hardlight fence guards the perimeter. Not enough to stop an attack.

"What happened to you?" Carolina says at last, coming to a stop by the fence. Epsilon's hologram appears opposite her, darker blue against a clear sky. "You were with me one minute, then the next you were gone."

Epsilon sighs. "All right, I know what you're tryin' to talk about here." Even his avatar is practically squirming. His presence in her head feels cornered, anxious. "Look, sometimes guys my age have… performance issues. It's completely natural."

She grits her teeth. "Epsilon, I'm serious."

"Hey, me too! This shit's embarrassing. And now I gotta talk to Dr. Grey about getting some pills—"

_"Stop dodging me on this,"_ she growls.

She can feel Church's sheepishness, even before his avatar sighs, and looks at the ground. And something else, too, a feeling she knows all too well.

Shame.

"Look," Epsilon says finally, "I'm not _failing_ if that's what you're worked up about. But…"

She waits.

"I have my limits."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you can't expect me to run all of your armor equipment at the drop of a hat!" He's defensive, and that too feels familiar. But that's not all of it. "I'm _not_ a young, brand new AI! I'm just one of the fragments."

Something feels hollow in her chest. Carolina has to look away for a moment. Out across the canyon, the sun is on its rise. Another day, one day closer to victory or death. Since the ship crash, she has not thought past the next battle, the next mission, the next speed boost or shield deployment. She _can't._ Because somewhere past the next push is the part where she falls, where she fails, where she's just a little too slow, where she misses the shot upon which everything hangs.

Where they all die, and it's her fault.

If she's always putting her all into this next step—the next shot, the next run, the next mission, the next _victory__—_maybe she never has to reach that part where she fails.

Except she already did. And for some reason she's still standing here.

"Look," she says to Epsilon. Trying to soften a little, in her words and in her mind. Trying to pull him out of that corner she can feel him retreating into. "I'm sorry if I pushed you too far. But we can't use that as an excuse." There are no excuses, that's the thing. There's only do, or die, and you can't make excuses to the dead. She doesn't say that out loud, though she knows Epsilon can hear it. Instead she says, "We're going to need every advantage we can get."

She feels Church bristle. "Oh, you're right. Would you like some holographic projections, too? How about a time distortion while you fight? Or, ooh, we could get you a seat warmer! How about that?"

He _knows_ better than this, he knows better and he's acting like a child about it and Carolina can feel herself losing her patience. "You _know_ what we're up against!"

"And _you_ know what happened to the Meta."

She goes strangely cold. Like the blood's just drained from her body and pooled at her feet. Her breathing feels shallow, and she hears herself say, "_What_ did you just say?" like it's someone else's voice, coming from far away.

Epsilon's blue avatar raises its chin defiantly. It doesn't feel like him either. His presence in her mind feels foreign, too, the line between them sharp, and the heat of his emotion like plasma, so hot it feels cold where it cuts. "_He_ kept fighting for more and more power, too. And in the end, it got him killed."

The world before her eyes burns white. Ice and sky and falling snow, and _the_ _gold visor that gleams against white armor, and everything feels frozen, distant. It__’s someone else struggling in the air, clawing at the iron grip around her throat, it isn’t her and it isn’t Maine because Maine would never do this—Tex _would_ go rogue and York _would_ get some stupid chivalric idea in his head, but _Maine_._

But Maine.

"…Don't you _ever_ talk about Maine like you knew him," she growls, and at once Epsilon's presence softens in her mind. Not relents, not retreats. But softens.

_I'm sorry. I didn't mean_ _—_

You don't fucking know what you didn't mean.

He speaks aloud again. "I'm just trying to show you how close you're getting to crossing a very dangerous line."

She looks away. Epsilon follows her gaze this time, across the canyon. Across Chorus, to the long horizon.

"You're Agent Carolina!" he adds, and the swell of affection and _pride_ in her mind makes _her_ want to retreat. Makes her want to sink to the bottom of that lake. "You don't need all this fancy stuff to win! You're already the best!"

If she was the best, they wouldn't be fucking standing here. How can he not see that?

She sighs. "I appreciate the thought, Church. I really do."

"Good," Epsilon says, relieved. "Because I am really not all about this sincerity stuff."

Most days, she'd laugh at that. But she has to get them back on topic, or she's going to lose him again. "The only reason we _survived_ the radio jammer is because Locus is _insane._ He could've killed Wash, and they both could've done a lot more."

"But they didn't!" Epsilon protests, and she can feel genuine bewilderment from him. "So what does it have to do with anything anyway?"

He's never going to get it.

He needs to get it.

"I told you when I went through the gateway," she says, forcing the words out, "that I saw the Freelancers." The memory rushes back, sharp and terrible, and she couldn't keep it from him now if she wanted to, but no. Let him see it. He has to _understand._

Connie staggering, an axe buried in her chest, so much blood on the floor. York falling in a hail of gunfire. Wyoming with a blue-white plasma blade though the breastplate. South with a bullet in her skull. North's armor sliced open by the long curved blade of the brute shot, and Maine—

Maine, her Maine, his eyes that could speak to her without a word, darkened from the inside.

Maine, her Maine, drowned in icy waters at the bottom of a cliff, the same cliff.

"I had to watch them die," is all she manages out loud, but Epsilon sees it all.

"…Oh," is all he says.

But it doesn't stop there. She sees Wash's body battered and motionless on the ground, Vanessa with Felix's knife in her back, Tucker stabbed and bleeding out with no one coming for him, Sarge and Grif and Simmons and Caboose and Donut, all fallen in the jungle under a sick yellow sky.

She feels Epsilon reach for her in her mind. She doesn't pull back.

"Church. I can't lose another family."

_I know, C. I know._

"You're scared."

Carolina about jumps out of her armor. Epsilon too. Their connection tightens in her mind, defensively.

"Er—forgive me," Donald Doyle says, looking sheepish. He's flanked by two bodyguards. Carolina wonders how much they all heard. "But I'm all too familiar with the feeling."

"What are you doing here?" Carolina says guardedly.

Doyle approaches the fence. Guess that private talk's about over. "It's my favorite part of the capital. Just far enough away from everything. I come here whenever I need a moment. It looks as though you had a similar idea?"

_Yeah, privacy, jackass. You familiar with the concept?_

Carolina fights not to snort out loud.

"Shouldn't you be in the center of town?" Epsilon says aloud. Back to his old abrasive self. It has its perks. "Behind seventy-eight inches of bulletproof _everything?"_

"Oh, there's all sorts of things we _should_ be doing," Doyle says mildly. "We _should_ be prepping our next move against the enemy. But instead we're here. Standing around, talking."

"Yeah…" Epsilon says, relenting. "You get used to it."

"You know!" Doyle says, apparently encouraged, "I believe it was the great William Shakespeare who said: 'Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.' I don't believe those words have ever been more relevant."

_What the fuck i_ _s with this guy?_

That was Shakespeare?

"I don't think that was Shakespeare," says Epsilon.

Carolina honestly has no idea. The quote sounds familiar. Like something she might've seen on a Pinterest post once.

"What?" says Doyle.

"That quote," says Church. "I don't think he said that."

"Really?" Doyle says, crestfallen.

"Yeah, pretty sure," says Epsilon.

"Uh, yeah," Carolina says.

"Oh."

"Still," Carolina adds, "It's a good quote."

"Thank you."

"Well," Epsilon says, "here's to hoping the mercs are just as frustrated as the rest of us."

Doyle nods. "No doubt." He gazes out across the canyon. "But I must admit… I haven't the foggiest idea how to proceed from here."

Carolina shoots him a glance. "We don't have any kind of a plan yet, I take it."

"I'm afraid not."

"Things not… going well with Kimball?"

"Well, I, ah…" Doyle looks down. "It's… rather my fault that the mercenaries have the sword, you see."

Carolina nods cautiously. "I haven't heard the full story yet."

"A sordid tale indeed," Doyle says mournfully.

He seems open enough to talking, so Carolina figures it's safe to broach the subject. If nothing else, talking strategy is a welcome relief from talking about _feelings._ At least there she can _do_ something. "What happened?"

Doyle sighs. "It seemed like _such_ a good idea at the time."

"Yeah," Carolina said. "It usually does."

"I'd send the reinforcements to you and Miss Kimball, nab the sword from the tower myself and be back to base before those scoundrels were any the wiser. I thought a single person would attract less attention…"

"But you couldn't land on top of the mountain," Carolina says, putting the pieces together. "The interference. And the mercenaries were right on your heels by the time you made it up on foot."

"Indeed."

"Sometimes, going it alone looks like the best option." Carolina sighs. "You're not the only who made a bad call yesterday."

Doyle's shoulders slump. "I thought if I could only… if I could just… God knows she hasn’t the slightest bit of respect for me, and—”

"Who, Kimball?"

"I thought perhaps such a victory would earn her respect," Doyle says. "Perhaps then she might not question my judgment on _every_ little thing. It's impossible to come to any sort of agreement when she simply _stonewalls_ me at every turn."

Carolina chooses her next words carefully. “Do you… respect her?”

“Well I mean of _course_ I—why, I’ve been very accommodating! Allowing her and her people back into the Capital after everything they’ve done.”

Carolina works hard to keep from eyerolling. “I didn’t ask if you’d been nice. I said do you respect her.”

Doyle goes silent for a moment. “Well… I…”

"Can I offer a suggestion?"

"Please," Doyle says.

“Call her by her rank.”

“What?”

“Her rank. She’s the General of the New Republic. She’s the same rank as you. But every time you speak to her, you call her ‘Miss Kimball.’ It’s… beyond disrespectful. It’s insulting. And she thinks you’re doing it on purpose, I guarantee you.”

Doyle looks like he might be knocked over by a stiff breeze. “Oh my. I—of course, but I never—oh. Oh dear.”

Carolina crosses her arms and cocks her head. “You… don’t have a lot of military experience, do you?”

Doyle puffs his chest out slightly. “I served under the late Brigadier General Milan for nearly twenty years. As his personal secretary, of course.” He looks wistful. “It was a good job. Good benefits.” He turns back to Carolina, curiously. “You’re… experienced, I take it.”

“Dad sent me away to military academy when I was twelve.”

“My goodness.”

“My mom died when I was little, and things… weren’t good, at home. I was better off at boarding school, trust me.” It occurs to her, with kind of a jolt, that she’s telling this man she barely knows things she’s never told Vanessa.

Maybe Vanessa had a point about that whole _I don't know you_ thing.

“Well,” Doyle says, which seems to be his placeholder. “Well. Terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” The words come automatically to her lips. Habits born in childhood. At least some of them have served her well.“It’s… yeah. My mom died in the Covenant War. She was an ODST.” Carolina almost bites her tongue, remembering Marri’s opinion of the UNSC.

But Doyle merely nods, and says with a note of admiration, “Your mother must have been a very brave woman.”

“She was.” Carolina nods. “I mean, that’s what everyone said.”

"Well," Doyle says, "I'd better get to it, then. Whatever _it_ is."

"Yeah," Carolina says. "Same here."

_Where are we headed, C?_

Right now, the training room.

_Dr. Grey said—_

To take it easy, and I will. Humor me for a set or two. Then we can figure out the rest.

The healing unit's done pretty good work. It's a hybridized, updated version of York's old unit, and works considerably more efficiently. With Epsilon running it, the back pain has receded to a more typical post-mission ache, and her knee is walkable without armor, though it still hurts. Her head's better too, though Dr. Grey has given her pretty dire warnings about the risk of any further head trauma. Carolina knows about that. Concussions are a cumulative risk, and this is her second.

Frankly, it doesn't change a whole lot. She'll do what she has to. The risk of her not acting when she's needed far outweighs the risk to her own health.

That thought rolls around in her head while she does leg extensions, pulldowns, seated fly. She finds a speed bag and pummels it with her fists for a few minutes, the speed and impact of chain blows clearing her mind to that simple flow of energy. Where all that matters is timing and force. Being in her body is the best way out of her head. Even when it hurts. Or especially.

Epsilon kind of rolls around with it, recedes into the background and doesn't talk for a while, though he's by no means at rest. For now, she's just grateful for the quiet, but she can feel him turning something over in their shared brainspace, sure as she can feel the burn in her muscles, the strain in her bad knee.

Carolina goes to the bench to load up, and Epsilon flickers.

_Supposed to have a spotter for that._

I have you.

_Funny. You know, there are other people in here. Would it kill you to ask another human being for help for once in your life?_

I know how to lift, Church.

He buzzes around discontentedly. Carolina takes to the bench and presses a double set of reps before he speaks again.

_You should talk to Kimball._

Is that what I should do.

_Look, C, I_ _… I'm sorry if I said anything or whatever… _

He did say anything. That's Church. He's kind of the "say anything" type.

Don't flatter yourself. I'm perfectly capable of fucking up my relationships on my own, thank you.

Church snorts. _It runs in the family._

Carolina sets the bar down in its brackets, and sighs. Yeah.

By the time she finishes, she does feel better, and Epsilon flows back into the forefront of her mind, seeming cheered up himself. It's not until she steps out of the locker room, back in her armor with the healing unit humming along, that she notices how quiet the main training room is.

Not just quiet. _Deserted._ No troops running laps and doing push-ups. No sign of Wash either.

Could he be running an outdoor exercise? It's possible. Something feels off, though. Wrong.

_Yeah, no kidding. Something's up._

Carolina quickens her pace, and heads for the Armory.


	3. The Way We Win

The roof is quiet. No birds going out or coming in. All troops in the field have been called back, and they still can’t agree on a plan.

Kimball wonders if Doyle ever comes up here. Never seen him, and if he has his own thinking spot, she doesn’t know about it. It isn’t always peaceful on the roof, and it isn’t even necessarily that it feels safe. Her old spot, back at the New Republic base, was the reservoir at one of the deepest points in the mine. Not much daylight to be seen down there, and that was some of the point.

Here on the roof, in downtown Armonia, the sky spread above her and slowly returning to its former blue, she feels how exposed they are. It’s the solitude that’s peaceful, and in some ways it’s a relief to see the sky, breathe the fresh air, such as it is. But it’s exposed, too. Charon has air support, something Doyle always seems to forget. If he’d only been at Alpha, watching those troops drop from the sky, he’d _understand._ How can she make him _see_ this? Doyle thinks of the city as a fortress, a walled castle, forgetting that their enemy can fly.

He’s such an idiot, she wants to kill him sometimes. Though only sometimes, she supposes, is a step up from before the truce, when she wanted to kill him all the time.

The city is a barrel and they are sitting ducks in it.

Yes, if they launch an offensive mission, more people will die. Kimball is no fool. But the alternative is to be starved out while they sit and wait. Unlikely they’ll even get that far. While Charon _might_ not be willing to consider bombardment (and even that is a tall assumption), that doesn't preclude other forms of aerial assault. For that matter, it would take only one skilled assassin infiltrating the city, getting eyes on Doyle—

and then it’s over for all of them.

Kimball closes her eyes, shutting out the expanse of the city for a moment.

_What do you fight for?_

There’s only one answer, isn’t there? For a better tomorrow—for there to _be_ a tomorrow for Chorus. For her people.

When she agreed to this truce, she put all of them, all of the New Republic who have fought so long and lost so much, at the mercy of Doyle’s incompetence and stupidity. If nothing else, she fights for _them._

And that means there’s only one thing to be done.

Kimball pings Marri on their secure command channel. Marri responds almost instantaneously. “General.”

“Staff meeting,” Kimball says. “Officers, New Republic only, and keep this one quiet. My office, twenty minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Marri says. “Understood.”

“I don’t want there to be any confusion,” Kimball says, surveying the faces of her officers. There isn’t a smile in the room, every expression somber, from the senior staff on down to the greenest lieutenant (that’d be Palomo, fidgeting in the corner). “What I am about to propose will break our truce with the Federal Army. If you find that objectionable, you may speak now and your objection will be noted. If you would prefer not to be present for this discussion, you may be dismissed. Your objection will go on record.”

Kimball allows for a lengthy pause. No one moves. Marri’s eyes never leave hers.

“I appreciate the show of faith,” Kimball says. “If, after hearing what I am about to say, you still wish to voice your objection, you may do so.”

Heads nod.

“We need a backup plan,” Kimball says, forging ahead. “Doyle is opposed to any offensive action and he is immovable on that point. I have committed myself and the New Republic to this truce to the fullest extent that I can. That was my choice. But the New Republic are my people, and I cannot condemn my people to death alongside the Federal Army because their leader chooses inaction.”

She pauses again to let that sink in.

“I am proposing a full-scale assault on Charon with the objective of securing the Key.” Kimball takes a deep breath. “The Key controls access to all of the alien towers on the planet. Should the Feds attack, which they probably will, we will have access to an additional weapons cache.” There are some raised eyebrows around the room. “Should they refrain, this may provide us leverage to negotiate terms more… agreeable to the New Republic.”

There are slow nods, some skeptical looks. The senior officers look weary, but resigned. It’s the younger ones, the Lieutenants, that cut right to Kimball’s heart. They look devastated. Jensen’s eyes are wide behind her thick glasses, and Palomo is staring at the ground, scuffing his boot back and forth the way she’s learned to read as not disinterest or disrespect, but anxiety. Bitters crosses his arms over his breastplate and stares off into the middle distance. Smith stands at parade rest, but even in his shoulders there is the slope of resignation.

They don’t object. No one does. But it’s in their faces, their stances, everything, and it sits heavy in Kimball’s stomach, an understanding she had not fully grasped before.

In breaking the truce, she is robbing them of hope.

Maybe sending them to their deaths on top of that.

“Any objections?” Kimball says, one last time. Not one officer speaks, until Marri steps forward and says, “With you, General.”

Kimball chokes up slightly, has to swallow before she can speak.

“Be ready for the order to move off base,” she says, finding her command voice again. “Dismissed.”

Carolina knows something’s up the minute she walks into the motorpool.

There are simultaneously too many people, and too few vehicles. A crowd of mostly New Republic soldiers are crowded around the sign-out desk, apparently trying to argue with an impassive and disinterested Lopez. At a glance, Carolina counts at least half the vehicles already gone. And more than half the tanks. Either Wash is running one hell of training exercise, or there’s an order she hasn’t heard about.

“Lopez,” she says, circling around the crowd to the back of the desk, “Who signed out all the vehicles?”

"Hey, no cutting in line!" someone protests, despite the fact that there is no semblance of a line. Carolina ignores them.

“No lo sé. ¿Ha comprobado la hoja de registro de salida?”

“Thanks,” Carolina says flatly, snatching up the sign-out sheet. A long list of names. Some she knows, a lot more she doesn’t. Almost all with the approval of a high-ranking Federal Army officer. Not Doyle.

She drops the sheet, and surveys the motorpool, feeling her blood rise fast.

“Lopez, put me down for a goose.”

“Lamento que tus brazos estén rotos.”

She ignores him. Hops on the nearest Mongoose and takes off for the perimeter.

Whoever ordered this at least had the sense not to order a full perimeter around the city limits. There aren’t nearly enough Feds to cover that much ground. Instead, they’ve cordoned off all the checkpoints into and out of downtown, complete with tanks and gunner hogs.

_Not Doyle'_ _s order’s then, if any amount of sense is involved._

Carolina chokes on a laugh. Can’t argue that one.

_What the hell's_ _ going on out here? _

“Hey, you! A-Agent! No further!”

Carolina slows the hog, lets it roll a few meters further, just to prove the young Fed isn’t going to shoot her. He isn’t. She can hear the tremor in his voice. She’s still a Freelancer.

Still got it.

“What’s going on out here, soldier?”

“Orders, Agent.”

“Whose orders? I only see Feds out here.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s just a precautionary measure.”

“Against what?”

The young soldier shakes his head. “You better talk to Major Stanforth.”

“And where would I find the Major?”

“Corner of eleventh and Bass.”

Carolina pulls a hard turn and takes off with a screech of rubber.

“That’s close enough, Agent.” The Major is indeed at the eleventh and Bass checkpoint. It takes Carolina seventeen minutes gunning it to get there. The Major sounds young, younger than Carolina maybe, but her voice doesn’t tremble.

Carolina pulls to a sharp stop. “Just checking the perimeter, Major.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“This coverage on the rotation?”

“Let’s not play games, Agent Carolina.”

Carolina has the distinct sense of having lost control of the conversation. She does not like it. “You’re gonna have to explain what you mean.”

“Orders are to hold this perimeter.”

“Against who?”

_Oh, son of a bitch,_ Epsilon mutters in her head, even before the answer comes.

Major Stanforth raises her chin. “Rebels are planning to break the truce, Agent. Your _General _gave the order herself.”

Carolina would like to think Kimball wouldn’t do this.

She’d like to think Kimball would have told her if she did.

She knows better than to think either.

Carolina takes the turn on tenth hard, mutters, “God _damn_ it, Vanessa,” and guns it back to base.

She thinks about calling Kimball on the radio. It’d be faster. But Kimball had some reason for not telling Carolina about the order, and if she feels cornered—

Better to find her. Talk to her in person. And if it’s true…

Back on base, she follows the sounds of shouting. There's a line at the armory now, stretching all the way down the corridor.

“You’re already at max for heavy weapons, Captain. You’ll have to choose something else.”

“At capacity? Since _when?_ I can see a pile of fucking rocket launchers from _here.__”_

“The treaty specifies that neither army may sign out more than half of the stock from any given weapons class without authorization from _both_ leaders.” Simmons is waving his clipboard in agitation. “The Federal Army has already reached quota. You can’t go over without authorization from Kimball.”

“Those rebel scum are already planning on breaking the truce—”

“Stop fighting!” Donut cries, ineffectually. "You're tearing us apart!"

“Nobody has broken the truce!” Simmons protests. “The truce stands! I give you a grenade launcher without authorization, _you__’ll_ be the one breaking it.”

It’s just short of chaos, and the Reds could probably use a hand calming things down. But Kimball is nowhere in sight. If she’s the source of this, Carolina needs to find her first.

If Wash has given up even trying to run drills, things are bad.

And if things are this bad, Kimball probably isn’t going to be freely wandering around base. She’ll be in the war room, or more likely her office. Which is smart, though Carolina’s frustration is rising anyway. The whole base is a powder keg and the only reason it hasn’t already exploded is that both sides do still have some kind of respect for administrative procedure and chain of command.

There are armed soldiers everywhere, and if a group of them decide to remove the Reds from their positions at the Armory—or worse—there will be nothing to stop them. They could mob the Reds and Blues, take them out in minutes. The only thing stopping them is whatever sense of camaraderie the Reds and Blues have formed with the two armies.

She has to fucking find Kimball.

“Kimball?”

She looks up. It’s Tucker in the doorway, and the look on his face says everything.

“Come in, Captain,” Kimball says.

“You’re trying to leave, aren’t you?”

Captain Tucker deserves a better answer than the one she has.

“It was only a precaution,” Kimball says wearily. “If we couldn’t reach an agreement on strategy.”

“You’re planning to break the truce. That’s what everyone’s saying. Is it true?”

Kimball looks him in the eye. “Who did you hear it from?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I need to know, Tucker. It was officers only. That the word got out so fast means we have a leak. And that means I have a problem.”

Tucker crosses his arms. “Or you have someone who didn’t want to break the truce and ruin everything we’ve been working toward.”

Kimball exhales. “Captain, I’m sorry that I didn’t include you and your friends. Many here see you as neutral parties, or at least _more_ neutral than anyone from Chorus can be. Had I brought you in, you would’ve been culpable. You would’ve lost any semblance of neutrality that you have now. My intent was to protect you from that culpability.”

Tucker throws both hands up. “If you break the truce, we’ll _have_ to take sides. Neutrality isn’t gonna help then.”

“It may not help regardless. Staying in this city is a deathtrap.” Kimball rubs her forehead wearily. “My first loyalties have to be to my people, Tucker. I know you understand that.”

Tucker goes quiet for a moment, then says reluctantly, “Yeah.”

“I’ve done everything within reason to promote compromise. What I cannot do is allow Doyle’s cowardice to condemn _all_ of us to death. If there’s a chance of saving at least some of us, I have to act. Morally, it’s the only right choice.”

“Palomo told me.”

Kimball nods slowly, processing that.

“He came to me,” Tucker says. “In private. He was scared. He didn’t know what to do or who else to talk to. He swore he didn’t tell anyone else, and I didn’t either. Someone else is your leak.”

“Could someone have overheard you talking?”

“I don’t—honestly? I don’t fuckin’ know.” Tucker sighs. “It’s not like there’s any privacy around here. I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess.” He rubs the back of his neck, meets Kimball's eyes. “I get why you did it. I get it. You’re just… trying to make the right call.”

Kimball nods.

Tucker looks down at the floor, then back up. “You think there is a right call here?”

“I don’t know,” Kimball says honestly.

Tucker nods. “Hold out a little longer, okay? If you can? If you have to do it, I’ll—I’ll be there. I can’t speak for the others, but I’m with you. I’ll lead my platoon.”

“Tucker,” Kimball says, her throat feeling tight, “thank you. That means more to me than you know.”

Tucker gives her a lopsided smile. “Nah. Like I said, I get it.”

Kimball allows herself a brief smile. “Thank you.”

“Last resort though, okay?” Tucker’s dark eyes are almost pleading. “Try for just a little longer.”

She nods. “We’ll try.”

When Tucker’s gone, she drops her head into her hands, and fights not to burst into tears.

The next knock on her door is Agent Washington, and Kimball suspects immediately that this one isn’t going to go nearly as well.

“General,” Wash says.

“Agent.”

“With all due respect,” Wash says tersely, “what the hell were you thinking?”

What was she thinking. The question on everyone’s mind. General Kimball, breaking the truce! Endangering us all! What was she _thinking?_

She was thinking of her duty to her people, of their very survival, of the fact that it is them she will answer to and their lives she will answer for. Not the scorn and vitriol of their enemies nor the disapproval and disappointment of their offworld allies.

She was thinking of her people.

“Did you come to lecture me,” Kimball says wearily, “or do you actually intend to hear me out?”

Wash opens his mouth and nothing comes out for a second or two and Kimball thinks she’s actually flustered him this time. It would be entertaining if things weren’t so dire, and if everyone, present company included, didn’t already think it was her fault.

“Kimball.”

Kimball and Wash both look up.

“Wash,” Carolina says, and Wash meets her eyes and something passes between them unspoken, and Wash nods and removes himself from the room. Just like that.

Carolina closes the door and drops into a chair, putting herself at eye level with Kimball. She takes off her helmet, and makes eye contact from across the small, cramped office.

“Okay,” she says. “Talk to me.”

“I didn’t tell you about the backup plan,” Kimball says. “I’m sorry.”

Carolina takes a deep breath, and then lets it out. “I understand why you didn’t.”

“I,” Kimball says. “Oh.”

“Wash and I are the closest thing you have to neutral parties. If you'd brought us in, it would’ve compromised that.”

Kimball nods.

Carolina turns her hands palm-up. “I don’t have to tell you that giving the order to deploy would break the truce. I imagine you’ve heard that a few times today.”

“Yep.”

“And I imagine you’re already aware that the Feds are setting up a blockade to prevent the New Republic from leaving the city.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who your leak was?”

“No,” Kimball confesses. “That’s what I don’t know. Tucker told me Palomo came to him. Swears he didn’t tell anyone else. It’s possible they were overheard.”

Carolina nods. “Or someone was eavesdropping on COMs. Radio security around here isn’t what it could be.”

Kimball grimaces.

Carolina cocks her head slightly, and her expression softens. “I assume you were planning for a last resort measure. I can’t say I blame you for that.”

Kimball steeples her fingers, trying to summon the right words. “I was, and I… appreciate your understanding. But Carolina, I think we might be in last resort territory already. Doyle is diametrically opposed to any offensive measures. He thinks the city is an impenetrable fortress. That’s what he’s trying to prove, with this—this _blockade_, in addition to keeping us in.”

“You assume Doyle ordered the blockade.”

“Who else would have?”

“I didn’t see his name on any of the equipment auths. It’s possible members of his senior staff acted without him.”

“That doesn’t mean the order didn’t come from him.”

“It doesn’t. But when was the last time you saw Doyle do anything proactive?”

“When he went after the Key alone,” Kimball says grimly. “Which he seemed to think was a _splendid_ idea.”

Carolina’s face tenses. “I should’ve been there first.”

“Carolina, you can’t fault yourself for not being in two places at once.”

“I should have figured something out.”

“And Doyle shouldn’t have handed the Key to end the world over to our enemies because he was scared of a bullet.” Kimball scowls. “Do you think the man’s ever been shot in his life?”

Carolina doesn’t answer that. Instead, she looks away, lost in thought, then finally looks back to Kimball. “What’s done is done, and this is where we are. Tensions are really high right now. I think if you and Doyle could meet—even if you can’t settle on a strategy right away, just making a good faith effort and letting the troops see that could calm things down a little bit. Do you think you can do that?”

Kimball is silent for a long moment, thinking about that.

“The truce won’t save us,” she says. “If Charon attacks with more reinforcements, Armonia will fall. All they need is Doyle, and once he’s dead, they can kill all of us. I _have_ to try to prevent that if I can.” She looks down at her desk, then back at Carolina. “Whatever the cost.”

Carolina nods. “I know.”

Meet with Doyle again. So he can disrespect and berate and belittle her, so he can haughtily put all the blame on her, so he can dig his heels in some more and refuse all options that might give them a shot at survival.

What choice does she even have? With her plan leaked, what good is it to her now? The only way out of Armonia now is to fight their way out, losing even more troops in the process and weakening them even further. They don’t have enough Pelicans to deploy by air, and Doyle probably has troops on the helipad by now anyway.

“I’ll do it,” she says, rising from her desk, trying to quiet the sense of dread building in her stomach. “Let’s go.”

Carolina rises with her, follows, but Kimball pauses at the door, and turns back to look at her. “Thank you. You coming here, hearing me out… it means a lot.”

Carolina nods. “Like I said. Whether or not it was the right thing to do… I understand why you did it.” Her eyes dart toward the door for a moment. "Wash means well. But he's always trying to see the right in both sides. Sometimes both sides aren't right."

“Feels like all I get told these days is why I'm wrong." Kimball smiles ruefully. "Even if I am. You listened to me. You’ve… always a been a good listener.”

Carolina snorts, but she’s smiling too. “Not sure I’ve ever been accused of that before.”

“I mean it,” Vanessa says, more seriously. “You’ve been there for me when I needed someone, more than once, and… Carolina, I’m sorry. About what I said before. I know I pushed you too hard, and I know I might have ruined things between us. I am sorry for that. And if we can't… if we can't have that relationship again, I understand. But I do want you to know what it means to me, you being here, you listening. What your friendship means to me, even if that’s where it stays.”

Carolina takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, too. I pushed you away, in the hospital, after—I know you were just trying to be there for me, and I wouldn’t let you.”

“You weren’t ready to talk,” Vanessa says. “It's okay.”

Somehow, in the course of this conversation, they’ve moved closer to one another. It would be so easy to close the distance.

Vanessa exhales a sad laugh. “I wish we had more time. I know this isn’t a good time for this, maybe it won’t ever be a good time but…”

Carolina meets her eyes, and doesn’t move.

“But I think it could work, between us,” she says, haltingly, and holds Carolina’s gaze for a moment. “If we both want it to.”

Carolina nods, looking a little surprised. “I think so too.”

“You do.”

“Yeah. I do.” Carolina nods. “We’ll talk more. When there’s time. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Kimball says. “That would be good.”

When there's time. She can only pray there will be.

"Carolina, what's your twenty? Are you with Kimball?"

"On our way to the war room now, Wash. What's up?"

"Things are, uh—" There is a muffled crash in the background over the radio. "Kind of escalating over here in the Armory. Is Kimball willing to return to negotiations?"

"She's up for giving it a shot. What about Doyle?"

"I can get Doyle on board. Can you head over this way and make sure nobody starts a firefight before we get them talking?"

"You tried assigning PT, I assume."

"Very funny."

"Well, it was a worth a shot." Carolina grimaces inside her helmet, and turns to Vanessa. "Are you okay if I go try to diffuse things at the Armory?"

There's only a minute beat before Kimball says, "Go."

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Do what you need to. I can manage." Vanessa nods. "Really. And… thank you again."

Carolina wants to do more. Wants to reach for Vanessa's hand, wants to offer her _something_ more. But there's no time, and she doesn't even know what they are right this moment, so she just nods, and she goes.

There's a crowd—_More like an angry mob,_ Epsilon mutters, and she can't disagree—formed around the Armory when she arrives minutes later. The entrance to the Armory is closed. Like most of Armonia's infrastructure, the parking garage is heavily walled, and every entry and exit point can be locked down. Carolina has wondered a few times if that design predates the war, or not.

There's not much chance of the Chorus soldiers breaking through the sealed door. The garage might as well be a fortress. Certainly can't blame the Reds for locking things down. There is, however, a pretty good chance of violence breaking out in the street, which wouldn't be much better.

"You have to let us in!" someone is shouting at the door—a Federal Captain named Brock. "We have orders!"

Carolina weighs her options quickly. If the Reds are inside, they're presumably fine. Priority number one has to be diffusing the situation out here.

She summons her command voice. Epsilon helpfully cranks up her voice amplifier and when she bellows "Ten-_shun!"_ her voice echoes sharply off the concrete walls.

She's in luck. Several soldiers amid the crowd snap to attention on instinct. Carolina can't help feeling a little bit proud of that. She's trained them well. Relief slams into her a moment later, followed by guilt—she still doesn't know how many of her squad made it back from Alpha. She spots Specialist Corbin in the crowd, and a few others—three. No, four. All Feds, of course. That doesn't necessarily mean the others—

"Agent Carolina!" Corbin sounds anxious. Uncertain. Is she still his commanding officer? Does he still answer to her?

Carolina knows what it's like to feel chain of command breaking down, to wonder where your orders are coming from.

_"Fall back, Agent Carolina. I got this."_

_"You fall back."_

She can't help sympathizing.

"What's going on here, soldier?"

Corbin looks at the Armory door, then at Carolina. "Orders, ma'am."

"Armory's closed, and the Generals are meeting in the war room. I am your commanding officer, and _I_ am ordering you to stand down."

"You're not _our_ CO!" one of the others, not from Aqua Squad, shouts. Her friend next to her elbows her in the ribs.

"Shut up! That's Agent _Carolina."_

The first soldier goes silent.

"Armory's closed," Carolina barks. "That goes for all of you. Report to your squad leaders and await your updated orders. Understood?"

A few reluctant nods break up the sea of defiant helmets.

"Now _move!"_

It takes a minute, but the crowd breaks up, and shuffles away. Too slowly for Carolina's taste, that's for sure. But it's a win.

She heads around to the side entrance.

"Bienvenido a la armería."

"Lopez," Carolina says, "where the hell _is_ everyone? Where are Simmons and Grif? Where's Donut?"

"En la sala de guerra."

"The war room? _All _of them? What are they doing there?"

"Asesoramiento."

"Counseling? What are you talking about?"

"No me preguntes. Pregúntale al idiota púrpura."

_Oh no,_ Church mutters.

"Oh _no,"_ Carolina echoes aloud, and takes off at a run.

She can hear raised voices all the way down the hall from the war room as she approaches. Doesn't sound good. God damn it, _no._ It was hard enough just getting the Generals to meet again, and this is going to ruin it. Wash was supposed to be on this, who the _hell_ let Doc—

"—rather die trying _something_ than waste another second standing around here!" she hears. Kimball.

Then they're back at square one. Deadlock.

She steps inside just as Doyle stammers, "K-Kimball—" and Vanessa snaps, "I have the speaking ball!"

_What in the love of fuck_ _—_

Doyle and Kimball are staring each other down in the center of the room, while the rest of the Reds and Blues, and Wash, stand around spectating. Accompanying the Generals is the fitness center's over-sized soccer ball, with Kimball's hand on it defiantly.

"Uhh," Church says aloud, "the speaking… ball?"

Kimball's gaze meets Carolina's across the room.

Vanessa, she thinks, I am so sorry.

"Yes," Kimball says tightly. "And you know what?" She shoots a sidelong glare at Doc. "I'm done talking. I'm ready for action."

_Well, here we go._

Epsilon, just—

"W-wait!" Doc stammers. "P-p-please! Look, can't you say just _one_ nice thing about the other person? Something? …_Anything?"_

_Holy shit, this is a train wreck._

Kimball stops.

She glances at the floor for a moment, then turns to Doyle and speaks.

"I always imagined you as a tyrant," she says. "A mad man bent on absolute control. Now I see I was wrong."

_This isn't going anywhere good, C._

Kimball stares into Doyle's visor. "You're just a stubborn, incompetent man. And I don't know what's worse."

Carolina can almost feel everyone in the room holding their breath.

"Ooh, that's a burn," Donut mutters.

After a moment, Doyle breaks the silence.

"Do you know what _your_ problem is, Vanessa?" (Carolina winces—better than _Miss Kimball_, maybe, but still not great.) "You're far too eager to die for your beliefs. When you felt your government had betrayed you, you stood against it. When your leaders fell before you, you took their place, and now when we are at our _most_ vulnerable, you want to fight. I can honestly say… that…" Doyle looks down at the floor. "I've… never met a more courageous individual in all my life."

Somehow, Carolina isn't even surprised.

"What?" says Tucker.

_"What?"_ hisses Kimball.

"What?" says Doc. "I mean—all right, great job!"

"I wish—" Doyle starts, then stops, looks away again, and sighs. "I wish I had a tenth of the courage that you possess. Maybe if I did, I'd have made a better General. But—I don't. And I'm afraid. Not just for myself, but for my people."

"They're my people, too," Kimball says quietly.

"Which is precisely why we should be working to save them!"

Kimball lifts her head. "You think some cheap compliments are going to win me over?"

"Why do you insist on fighting me?" Doyle cries.

"Look, guys," Wash interjects, finally. "If we can just—"

The ground shakes with the crack of an explosion. Carolina feels her adrenaline spike instantly, has her rifle off her back and Epsilon is awake and waiting on the knife edge to activate an armor enhancement on her command.

He's here. There's comfort in that, at least.

"Uh," says Grif, "what was that?"

There's a second _crack,_ and then the base radio comes on. "General Kimball," comes a voice—it's Lieutenant Smith, one of Kimball's—"We're under attack!"

"What?" Kimball says.

"That's impossible," Doyle cries. "They'd never risk a bombing run—"

"Well, that's the thing," says Smith. "They're actually not…"

Kimball doesn't bother saying_ I told you so. _Someone would just scold her for it, anyway.

There's no pleasure in being right, just the slow creep of inevitability, as the sounds of battle in the streets of Armonia greet them over the radio, and for a long moment the voices in the war room become static in her ears.

God only knows what else Charon has waiting in orbit—the radio jammers would prevent detection by any equipment they have down here. Charon can bring in near-infinite resources from outside, while here on the ground… they only have what they have, and who they have, here on Chorus. It's not just the city that's a deathtrap. It's the whole fucking planet.

She feels at once very, very small, and so tired.

"Hold up," says Epsilon. "Um, I got a better idea, but… you're probably not gonna like it."

"Can't be much worse than the current one," says Grif.

Epsilon spreads his holographic hands. "It's like Kimball said. The Capital's a deathtrap. But not for us."

There's something about it that feels the way it should. The order goes out to all New Republic and Federal troops on base to evacuate Armonia. Take all available vehicles and weapons. No sign-outs, no limits, no protocol. Just take everything and go.

It's simple, in a way.

"Just stay close to me," Carolina murmurs at her side, and Kimball doesn't argue. She fully intends to be the last one out of this city. As Doyle must be the first. Her feelings about him are irrelevant now. He is the one who has to survive.

Carolina is on the radio with the Reds and Blues. "Load up as many supplies as you can, then get Tucker and Doyle out of the city. We'll take care of the reactor's manual overload.

"Be ready to come pick us up once you're done," Wash adds.

"Are you sure there is no other way?" Doyle over COM still sounds distressed. "Armonia is our home!"

_Your _home, Kimball thinks.

"We'll build a new one," she says aloud. "Right now you need to focus on staying alive."

Her deja-vu is powerful. Maybe that's why it feels almost like a dream, moving through the maintenance tunnels beneath Armonia. _Armonia,_ itself like a dream, lost so long ago. And they had it back, for a little while.

It was years ago, but the tunnels still smell the same. She's lost track of precisely where they are in the network, but they look much the same too, steel-walled and labyrinthine. The same tunnels the nascent New Republic took to escape the University of Armonia when the MPs raided the campus to root out dissidents. Hundreds of student and faculty activists flooded the tunnels, hungry and scared and lost for sure were it not for the help of the Sanitation Workers Union, recently made illegal by new legislation lobbied for by the Armonia Mineral Assets Corporation and pushed through by senators in AMAC's pocket. Union workers in hazmat jumpsuits met them at checkpoints, brought them food and water, and gave directions through the network of maintenance tunnels to guide them to rebel safe houses. Union workers sealed off the checkpoints to protect them when the Feds shot tear gas down into the tunnels to try and smoke them out.

The same tunnels were their only means of retreat a few years later, when they were fully and undeniably at war, and after a brief period of victory when it looked like the New Republic might actually be able to hold most of Armonia, the Feds made a push from without, and forced them out of the city. Without the tunnels, they would have been wiped out.

They were down there for days, but by then, they knew the tunnels. By then, members of illegal unions made up a sizable portion of the New Republic. By the time they made it out of the city, they were joined by no small number of mining workers from the outlying towns, who led them to their first headquarters in the wild.

Vanessa remembers the hours spent huddled in alcoves and boiler rooms when the temperature dropped at night, remembers splitting her rations with a comrade and sleeping sitting up, back against the steel wall with a pistol in her hand.

It's Epsilon who guides them through the tunnels now, heading for the underground reactor at the heart of Armonia. He has the city plans, downloaded from the Feds' records. Kimball wonders if Doyle gave him permission, or if Epsilon just went for it. Neither would surprise her.

"How much farther?" Carolina asks. She moves with long, purposeful strides, always a step and a half ahead of Kimball and Wash.

"It's gonna be a while," Epsilon says. "These tunnels wind all over the place."

"Well, at least they keep us off the streets and out of trouble," Carolina remarks.

And as if on cue, a figure in black and red Charon armor emerges from around the next corner. "I wouldn't be so sure."

Kimball raises her rifle. Wash does the same, but the Charon soldier activates a hardlight shield—like Felix's, god damn it.

"Ah-ah," he says, tauntingly. "I don't think so."

Epsilon sighs. "I really, _really_ hate this guy."

"We don't have time for this," Wash says through his teeth. And they don't. But in the narrow T of the tunnel intersection, there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to flank. Too close to use a grenade. Deadlock. But if he wants them dead, he'll have to drop his shield to fire. They can get him then. With Wash and Kimball at angles, they can get him even if he tries to maintain partial cover. She's seen the way Wash can shoot.

"Don't worry," Carolina says, "I'm the one he wants." She looks at the Charon soldier. "If I stay, will you let them go?"

Kimball's heart skips a beat. _No._ They need to stay together. Unless—but Wash is already lowering his weapon.

Kimball follows suit.

The soldier cocks his head, and drops the light shield, says, "Huh. Deal," and Kimball thinks, just open fire—we could take him down right now. But Carolina's stance says _No. Leave him to me._

"But once you're dead," the soldier adds, and his gaze shifts, "I'm coming after _you_, Washington."

Wash merely looks at Carolina, and says coolly, "Please kill him."

"You sure you'll be all right?" Kimball says.

"Yeah," Carolina says. "I'm sure."

She trusts Carolina. She has to. Carolina will be fine. Whatever this is, it means something to her.

Wish she had the chance to know what. Maybe she will. Maybe she won't. As they round the next turn, Kimball feels that sense of inevitability settle in her stomach. It's not a certainty, she knows, as evidenced by the fact that she's still alive after feeling it before.

But the captain goes down with the ship. That's how it's supposed to work.

So maybe this will be it, for real.

"Who is he?" Kimball says, and Wash shoots a glance at her, startled.

"He's Charon. Well, UNSC contracted to Charon. One of the squad assigned to guard an asset we targeted in Freelancer." Wash shoots her another look. "I don't know how much you know about—

"I know enough," says Kimball, to save time.

"Right. Well, the rest of his squad were killed."

"By Freelancers."

"Yes. By our squad specifically."

"So he wants revenge?"

"Apparently."

"Why does Carolina want to fight him alone?"

There's a pause, punctuated by the quick beat of their footsteps, before Wash says, "I'm not sure."

"But you let her go."

"I trust Carolina." Wash gives a half-shrug. "Look, I know as well as anyone that she can be her own worst enemy sometimes. But she doesn't do things without a _reason." _There is a sort of controlled blankness to Wash's voice when he adds, "I'm—sure you know that."

"I… do," Kimball says. She has never acknowledged the nature of their relationship in Wash’s presence, nor has Wash ever indicated that he knows, and nothing could make it more obvious that he _does_ know than the careful neutrality with which he speaks now. So she adds, “I know our relationship has been sort of an open secret,” and Wash relaxes a fraction of a degree.

Okay, it's out there. No reason to be awkward.

"You probably know her better than I do," Kimball says, giving him an opening. "You've known her for a long time…"

Wash shrugs. “Not like you’re thinking. I mean, we worked together in Freelancer. She was my squad leader.”

“Oh.” Kimball feels a little foolish. “I might’ve—I guess I misunderstood. I always thought the two of you were friends.”

“No, we are," Wash says quickly. "We are friends, I—I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, I mean—I guess maybe it’d be more accurate to say we’re like family. All of us—Carolina, me, the Reds and Blues."

“Was it like that in Freelancer? Like family?”

“No,” Wash says immediately. “It really wasn’t. I wouldn’t even say we were friends back then. We were a competitive group, Alpha Squad more than anyone. We had to be.”

“You competed against your own teammates.”

“Had to. It was the nature of the program. Rankings determined teams, mission deployments, leadership, equipment… everything.”

“Sounds detrimental to unit cohesion.”

“It was.”

Wash is obviously not eager to go into detail about that, and Kimball doesn't want to seem like she's prying, so she goes quiet for a few minutes, looking out for signs pointing them to the reactor.

"You said she has her reasons," Kimball says finally. "And I know she does. It's just hard sometimes, not knowing what the reasons _are._ She does seem to… shut down about certain things. And I’m not really sure what those things are.”

Wash doesn't answer for a moment. As they round the next corner, he says at last, "I know what you're talking about, because—I'm like that too. We don’t—we’re not good with, like. Emotional stuff. Either of us.”

“That much I had noticed.”

“But that doesn’t mean we don’t care about each other. Look out for each other. You know?”

She does. It’s been like that in the New Republic as long as she’s been in. Kimball has no blood family left on Chorus, none left in the universe for all she knows. Family, Mom used to say, is the people you love even when they’re wrong. And stupid, she would add, half-fondly and half-cuttingly. Even growing up, Vanessa had understood that the children of well-adjusted families don’t generally sign on to colony missions halfway across the galaxy.

She nods.

"Carolina has her own way of showing she cares," Wash says. "And I get that you want to know her better, but… it's really not my place to say anything more than that."

"Understood," Kimball says quickly. "I certainly wouldn't want you to break confidence."

"It's obvious she cares about you, you know." Wash shoots her a look. "That much isn't breaking anything. And I can tell you've made her happy. Beyond that… if it's gonna work, you guys will figure it out."

In spite of everything, she smiles to herself. “That how it went with you and Tucker?”

Wash snorts, clearly a little bit caught off guard, but not defensive. “You assume we’ve figured it out.”

“You seem happy, though.

Wash nods slowly, as though a bit perplexed at the very concept. “I… am.”

As if on cue, Tucker pops up on COMs. "Wash, please tell me you guys are done at the reactor."

"We need backup!" Doyle adds, putting Kimball instantly on edge.

"Haven't made it yet," Wash says, quickening his steps. "We ran into Sharkface. Carolina's handling him. What's wrong?"

"Forget it," Tucker says. "We'll figure something out."

She hears Doyle start to protest in the background before the transmission cuts off.

"I can go alone."

"What?"

"I can handle the detonation. You should go to Tucker and Doyle. They have to get out of the city."

"Tucker can handle things."

"I'm not trying to second-guess Tucker. I'm saying I can get to the reactor alone and set off the detonation."

Wash stops dead and turns to look at Kimball. "You're not doing this."

"What am I not doing?"

"Going down with the ship." Wash nods down the corridor, and springs into motion again so that Kimball has to scramble to catch up. "We're not having this conversation. We don't have time. We need to trust our people to do their jobs. Our job is to get to that reactor."

Kimball has no argument for that. "There's another sign. Hang a right."

"Wait," Doyle calls over the radio. "_Wait! _If the pirates know we're on board the Pelican, what's to keep them in the city for the explosion?"

Kimball feels her stomach sink.

"What?" says Tucker.

"I mean they'll just come after us!" Doyle says desperately. "We'll lose our home, we'll lose _everything_ for nothing!"

"Doyle—" Kimball tries but there's noise over the radio, commotion—muffled voices in the background, Tucker says something that's drowned in static, and Kimball's heart nearly stops until she hears Doyle's voice again:

"You'll never take me alive, you bastards!"

"What is he _doing?" _Kimball hisses. "Tucker—what's happening? …Doyle!"

There's no response. She and Wash exchange a look.

"Tucker, come in," says Wash. "What's your status?"

"Uh," Tucker says, "Doyle's gone."

Kimball feels sick. "What do you mean, he's _gone?"_ If you mean dead, say _dead._ He can't be dead. He can't—

"He just took off on a Mongoose! He said if we all went on the ship the plan wouldn't work."

"We'll find him," Wash says. "Just make sure the Reds get you to safety. We'll radio them when we're ready."

"Yeah, yeah."

"What the _hell_ does he think he's doing?!" She's almost shouting now, they're so close, and Doyle's going to ruin everything—

"Calm down," Wash says, and Kimball refrains from punching him. "I'll get him on a secure line and handle this." He switches to a secure channel, keeping Kimball on the call. "Doyle! What the hell do you think you're doing? We need you on that ship!"

There's something gratifying about hearing Wash finally, _finally_ get worked up about something.

She's glad she didn't punch him.

"Believe me, I would _love_ to be on board," Doyle squeaks, and there's a tremor in his voice. "But right now I'm the only thing keeping Charon from leaving the city! How soon can you be at the reactor? I can't lead them on forever."

Wash glances at Kimball. "We're not sure," he says grimly. "Without Epsilon we're running blind down here. We may have to surface and risk moving on the streets."

There's a brief pause before Doyle says, "Then don't bother."

Wash tenses. "What do you mean?"

"Armonia's nearly abandoned," Doyle says, "and I know every back alley and short cut. At this rate, I'll reach the reactor before you."

"Don't even think about it!" One job, the bastard has _one job_—

_"Stop arguing and listen to me!_ I can wait to trigger the meltdown but once it begins we only have about fifteen minutes. Where is the extraction point?"

"The intersection at 51st and Tenor is wide enough for a Pelican," Wash says, "but it's a few miles away from the reactor. We were planning on grabbing a Warthog from the training facility to make it in time."

"Very well then." Doyle's voice has steadied a bit. "Go help Carolina. I'll meet you all at the Pelican once this is done." There's a screech of tires. "Ahh! Provided I don't crash and die on this horrible thing!"

Kimball closes her eyes and counts to ten.

Wash switches channels. "Carolina, it's Wash. When can you get to the LZ?"

Carolina hits the pavement hard, and feels it in her leg.

The pain radiates from her knee up her femur and down her tibia, a screaming halo of pain vibrating up and down her left side. But her head is clear. She's avoided further head trauma.

She's following doctor's orders. Sort of.

The soldier in the black and red armor lies dead in the middle of Tenor Street. If it weren't for the pain in her leg, Carolina would like to get closer. Get one last look at his face. As though that would change something.

She said she was sorry. She is.

But it's over, and he'll have to settle for burial by nuclear detonation.

Wash gives her a hand up. "You okay?"

"Thanks to you." Carolina grimaces inside her helmet as she gets to her feet, leaning more into Wash's grip than she'd like to admit. Her armor's gel layer modulates as she stands, putting pressure on her leg in the right places. It helps a bit. Makes it tolerable to stand on, anyway. "Now, let's get out of here."

Wash gets Grif on the radio for extraction, and Kimball radios Doyle. Sure hope he's ready.

"Doyle, what is it?" Kimball says, tension in her voice, and Carolina switches to their channel.

"I'm afraid…" Doyle says, haltingly, "I'm afraid I won't be joining you?"

"What?" Epsilon interjects.

"The controls are destroyed." She hears the clicking sound of a weapon reloading. "There's no way to overload the reactor with enough time to leave. But I can still trigger an explosion if I damage the core myself."

"Don't be an idiot!" Vanessa cries, desperation rising in her voice. "We need you alive. Just stay low and we can come to you."

Carolina has a hand on her rifle. Epsilon is at the ready, waiting. Just say the word, and—

"Kimball, I'm _surrounded. _And someone needs to be here to pull the trigger."

The roar of a Pelican comes in hot overhead, the black bird dropping from the sky to alight in the intersection. Carolina turns, looks at the bird. Looks back up the street, back to the heart of the city.

Epsilon sighs. "Son of a bitch."

We can make it if we go now. We can—

_Carolina, we can't._

We have to—

"It's like you said," Doyle continues, quieter. "Sometimes, you have to risk lives—"

"Then let me do it!" Kimball insists, and Carolina feels every nerve in her body tense, every reflex, every fiber of muscle. No. She can make this run, even if it's the last one she does. "If Felix isn't in the city, you'll be putting the sword right into his hand!"

We have to—

_Carolina, this isn't it. _

She looks at Vanessa, staring into the heart of her city, gripping her rifle like it's the last thing she has in the world to hold onto.

_Carolina._

"There's no time!" Doyle shouts.

"Come on," Simmons calls from the Pelican, "let's go!"

She puts her hand on Vanessa's shoulder. "Kimball," she says, quietly, and Vanessa looks at her.

Looks down. Her shoulders drop.

Doyle is still talking, saying, "You need to go," and Vanessa screams, "God damn it, Doyle, _stop,"_ and Carolina holds onto her, and Doyle says, "Chorus still needs you, Miss Kimball," and Carolina holds onto her. She holds onto Vanessa. She doesn't let go.

Wash grabs Carolina's arm. "We have to go."

"Wait," Kimball cries, _"no!"_

Carolina links her hand into Vanessa's elbow, and drags her onto the Pelican.

She doesn't let go until the hatch is up, and Kimball is in the Pelican beside her.

There is a moment of perfect sync when Epsilon activates the energy shield.

Something she hasn’t felt since Eta and Iota. It’s just her and Church this time, but then again, it isn’t. The shadows of Eta and Iota, of _all _of them, are within Epsilon. He knows she knows that, even if he doesn’t talk about it, even if he walls it off from her the way she walls off Maine.

She and Church sync perfectly in that moment, but Epsilon also syncs perfectly with the fragments of himself, a blinding beam of blue-white light.

They don’t have to talk about it, she doesn’t have to tell him what she’s thinking—he’s already in the memory as she throws herself up the ladder to the overhead hatch, practically leaping from rung to rung as she climbs. _North, whatever you__’re gonna do, you better do it fast—_the memory flows between them and Epsilon is in it and he’s prepping the shield unit before her grav boots hit the hull.

It has to be doable. North did it on his own without an AI. Delta and the Director, Carolina thinks fleetingly, might have exaggerated the improbability of that success in order to make a point. Epsilon flickers agreement.

_The Director was a dramatic motherfucker._

Look who’s talking.

All of that passes between them in an instant, and then the unit fires and Carolina spreads her arms wide as though pushing the bubble outward, wide enough to hold them all.

She never doubts that it’ll work.

It has to.

Everything whites out, but Carolina is conscious. Everything seems to have slowed down, for a moment, the shockwave from the blast not ripping the Pelican apart at the seams but pushing them upward in their trajectory through the atmosphere like some kind of kickball.

She feels really and truly weightless, for that long moment. Better than jumping out of the back of a dropship or off a hundred-story building, because she’s not falling. She’s _flying._

And then the shield drops, and her breath slams back into her lungs.

The Pelican shudders, leveling out in atmosphere. Carolina sways on the hull, dizzy, a lead feeling in her head, but her grav boots keep her grounded to the ship.

“Epsilon.”

No response. Her HUD flashes, _SIGNIFICANT TRAUMA DETECTED. RESTARTING IN 10__… 9…_

_Church?_

Carolina closes the hatch over her head, descends the ladder with heavy steps. She has to pause, standing and holding onto one of the crash bars, for that moment of immobility, darkness and near-silence when the armor’s onboard computer reboots. Didn’t have time to get her helmet off first, so she just waits, catching her breath, heart hammering in her chest.

_RESTARTING. INSTALL UPDATES NOW?_

Oh, for _fuck__’s_ sake.

Her HUD lights up again, finally, bringing the interior of the Pelican into dim focus, then brightening. Wash and Grif are seated on one side, on the other Sarge and Simmons. And Kimball, staring dead ahead, gripping the crash bar like her hands have frozen to it.

“Church,” Carolina whispers inside her helmet.

No response.

“Back _here,_” Grif mutters as they disembark into the canyon. “It figures.”

Back here. Crash Site Bravo. Where it all began. Carolina didn’t… spend a whole lot of time here. Epsilon picked up Charon chatter, they ran off to investigate. God, it seems like a year ago.

“Epsilon,” she’s saying, out loud now, _“Church.”_

“Church?” Caboose says, jogging up to them. “Where’s Church?”

Carolina swallows down the quiet panic building in the pit of her stomach. “Church is… tired, Caboose. He really tired himself out, running my shield. He’s resting.”

“Oh,” says Caboose, “Okay.”

If only things were that simple.

She has to get her mind off this, off the _hole_ in her consciousness where his presence and his voice would be. Church reinitialized after the fall. Like her armor, he crashed, had to reboot. He’ll be back.

He’ll be back.

Kimball has disappeared.

The panic is rising now, everyone she knows slipping out of her reach, and Armonia is gone and Doyle is gone, god, what are they doing to _do__— _

Kimball is inside Blue Base.

You can tell it’s Blue Base because somebody has hung a blue towel from the door like a flag, and also it smells like motor oil and cheap cologne instead of motor oil and old socks.

Carolina steps inside.

Vanessa is sitting on a crate, hugging her breastplate and starting at the wall.

“Vanessa,” Carolina says quietly, not wanting to startle her. But Kimball doesn’t even move.

“He’s dead,” she says hollowly.

Carolina swallows.

“He’s dead,” Kimball says again, like she’s going to say something else. But she doesn’t.

Carolina moves closer, puts a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder, and Vanessa doesn’t move, and if ever there was a moment when Carolina wanted,_ needed _to know the right thing to say, it’s now. And she’s got nothing. Every word of comfort is a lie. Every awful truth, Vanessa already knows.

“I’m here if you need me,” she says finally.

She waits for an answer, but Vanessa doesn’t respond.

Things aren’t pretty on the ground outside. A scatter of dropships have landed in the canyon, and plenty more at other locations. When she comes back outside, Wash and Tucker are on the radio trying to make contact with the rest of their troops, trying to confirm who’s accounted for. They can’t risk revealing locations over COMs. All they can do is check in, see that as many of them as possible survived.

Here in the canyon, you could cut the tension with a plasma blade. Carolina’s neck prickles with it the minute she steps outside. The Chorus troops are clustered entirely by faction, muttering groups of Feds eyeing the News, and uneasy rebels eyeing them in turn.

“They already know,” Carolina mutters to Wash, “don’t they?”

Wash sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know how. Somebody must have heard it over COMs. Not to be paranoid, but you might want to keep an eye on Kimball.”

Carolina sighs. “Yeah. Probably not a bad idea. You were with the Feds. Can you talk to them?”

Wash shrugs uneasily. “Not sure that would do any good. I don’t have the pull with them that Tucker and the others have with the rebels.”

“We _can__’t_ have them turning on each other now.”

“Yeah,” Wash says grimly. “This is a powder keg.” He surveys the canyon, the tight clusters of Federal and New Republic soldiers in their winter-white and desert-tan armor. “Any ideas?”

Carolina wracks her brain. _Any ideas, Church?_

…Right.

She's been scanning for members of Aqua Squad since they landed. Those that made it back from Alpha. She still doesn't know who else survived, hasn't had a free moment to check since the hospital. She can't spot any of them in the crowd from this vantage. It's entirely possible none of them landed here.

“Maybe Tucker? He’s so good with the rebels, maybe if—” Carolina breaks off, shakes her head. “No, you’re right. It doesn’t matter how good he is. In the Feds’ eyes he’s aligned with the enemy. They won’t trust him. What about Sarge?”

Wash makes a considering noise. “Well, I _have_ seen Sarge’s pep talks do some heavy lifting on occasion. This might be out of his league, though.”

“There’s always Donut,” Carolina says wryly.

Wash lets out a desperate sort of laugh.

Carolina spots movement at her three o’clock, and turns.

“Excuse us. Where’s Kimball?” a Fed in white armor with red accents says, evenly. Too evenly. Rifle in hand. Half a dozen more soldiers at his back. Carolina recognizes him as a Captain.

Without pausing unnaturally long before she speaks, Carolina calculates exactly how she would take him down non-lethally, if he were to attack. Works out in her head how she would take on the other six, the order in which she would strike, how she would disarm them.

The odds of that plan holding for more than a couple of moves are somewhere between slim and none. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, as they say. The battlefield isn’t a chess game, despite what her father often seemed to think. You just _can__’t_ predict things that many moves ahead.

And if any one them opens fire, Carolina is certain it will escalate to all-out battle in seconds.

She says, “What can I do for you, soldier?”

Captain Basil says, “We just want to talk to her. We want to know what happened.”

“What happened is your General went out a hero,” Wash says levelly, with a note of gentleness in his voice, something that reminds her a little of the Wash he was in Freelancer and at the same doesn’t, at all. There’s a maturity and gravity there far beyond that old Wash, and she feels suddenly so deeply grateful to have Wash, _this _Wash, at her side.

The Captain says again, “We just want to talk to her.”

No command voice is going to resolve this situation. They’re not on base. They’re in the field, everyone on edge and armed to the teeth, and you couldn’t disarm everyone if you wanted to. There’s only one solution to this, and it’s the one they never trained for in Freelancer, the one her father, a civilian with a magnetic accelerator cannon and fifty Archer missile pods at his fingertips, never understood.

De-escalate.

Maybe if she’d started with that, the man in the red and black armor wouldn’t be dead.

Carolina keeps her voice carefully neutral. Not too loud. Maybe even a touch of gentleness like Wash. Is she doing that right? “She wanted to be the one to stay and blow the reactor. You can watch the footage from my helmet logs, if you want.”

The Captain scoffs. “You know how easy it is to fake a helmet log? There’s software for that. Open source. You can download it for _free._”

And I suppose you think I spent the flight out here doctoring up a fake video log, Carolina doesn’t snap at him. It’s a ridiculous accusation, but this is the level of paranoia they’re at right now.

De-escalate.

“Okay,” Carolina says. Steady. “I know you’re all upset. Scared. I don’t blame you. We all are. Doyle was, too—”

The Captain’s grip on his rifle tightens. “Don’t talk about him! He was _our _leader!” Basil’s voice quavers slightly at the end, and Carolina remembers once again just how young most of these soldiers are, even the officers. “He was all we had _left.__”_

Carolina takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m sorry for your loss.”

The barrel of Captain Basil’s rifle lowers slightly. His shoulders sag a little, too. His hands tremble on the grip.

“General Doyle was scared, too,” Carolina says quietly. “He and I talked about that. But in the moment when he had to be, he was _brave._ He gave us all the chance to escape. We can’t waste that chance fighting each other. Captain, we can’t let your leader have died in vain. He’s _not _all you have left. You have each other. You have your friends here, and your allies too.”

Basil is quiet, like he’s considering.

“And you have us,” Wash adds, glancing at Carolina, and they exchange a nod. “We’re going to find a way out of this, Captain. All of us together.”

Basil nods slowly. “We still want to talk to her.” But it doesn’t sound like a demand made at gunpoint anymore. Just a statement.

“And I know she’s going to want to talk to you,” Carolina says, with a bit more confidence than she feels. “Give her a little time, okay? We have to come up with our next move. But you’ll hear from her, soldier. I promise you that.”

“How can you promise that?” Basil retorts.

“Because,” Carolina says, “I know her.”

Donald Doyle is dead.

Kimball says that to herself, over and over, trying to make it make sense. Trying to make it real.

It’s not that the General of the Federal Army is dead. That, she knows, wouldn’t be the first time. She doesn’t know how many leaders the Federal Army has lost. From the sound of it, it’s a lot more than the New Republic—but then, their numbers were always more meager.

At least, she always believed they were.

Donald Doyle was supposed to be one in a long line of iron-fisted tyrants. Instead, he was a personal fucking secretary thrust into military leadership by what was left of the chain of command, and the thought is boggling. The sheer number of high-ranking government officials and military officers who had to die, for a _secretary__—_

The sheer quantity of their intel that had been utterly and completely wrong.

Intel gathered, handled, and overseen by Felix.

Donald Doyle was a secretary, and then he was a General, and then he was the bearer of the Key that could end their world, and now he is dead.

She has to admit, she’s already waiting for it. The end. How will it come, she wonders, when they open the temple, when they activate the purge? Will everyone on the planet just fall over dead in an instant? Does it work by some mechanism that will kill them slowly, like poisonous gas released into the atmosphere? Will they all disintegrate with the snap of a finger, like in one of those classic twenty-first century movies? Will they suffer as they die, or will it be instantaneous?

She hopes they don’t suffer. The people of this planet have suffered enough. Even the Feds. They shouldn’t suffer anymore.

That makes her feel something, something she can almost touch but not quite, like when the right word is on the tip of your tongue. She can’t quite reach it. She feels so tired.

Maybe she’s ready for all of this to be over at last.

Epsilon’s restart is harsher this time. Carolina feels kind of a crackling at the base of her skull, needle flashes behind her eyes. It’s suddenly way too bright and sunny out in the canyon.

“Carolina?” Wash says, his helmet tilting with concern. “You okay?”

She grits her teeth. Takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I think he’s coming back online. I’m gonna—”

She jogs up the ramp to the upper level of Blue Base. Wash follows, and Tucker and Caboose trail behind like ducklings. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the Reds hovering not far behind.

It’s him. She can feel disorientation, confusion, spreading through her consciousness, then a sharp clarity, settling into the low-level irritation that is a constant when Church is onboard.

It’s a relief to feel that again.

“Church?” she says, and blue light flickers uncertainly before her eyes. She remembers what they told everyone, the first time around. Focus. It’ll get clearer. Come on, Epsilon. Wake up.

“North,” Epsilon says, hologram flickering to life, “was a crazy son-of-a-bitch.”

“HE’S ALIVE!” Caboose bellows, and Carolina feels a sudden surge of guilt.

“You okay, dude?” Tucker asks.

“Yeah,” Epsilon says, still sounding and feeling a little groggy. “Yeah, I’m good, uh… where are we?”

“Back where we started,” Carolina says, looking out over the canyon, Church's gaze following her own. “Where it all began.”

Her head’s cleared by the time they step outside, and the sun doesn’t hurt her eyes now. Epsilon has returned to her shoulder, his blue hologram a comforting glow in her peripheral vision. He surveys it all as she brings him up to speed. Some Feds are poking around the entrance to the crashed ship, and Carolina grimaces. Somebody should probably warn them about looking around inside. There are… a lot of bodies.

Then again, they’re probably used to that.

Carolina casts a glance at the Lieutenants, over with the New Republic platoons. She spots a good number of officers, and Marri with their gold-accented armor. But no Kimball in sight.

In a perverse way, the New Republic won.

Vanessa paces the ground level of the makeshift base. Her heart’s mostly stopped racing. Everything feels more… slow, liquid, unreal right now.

Near the base entrance, something lies on the ground, a white page creased as though it had been knocked down and stepped on. Vanessa picks it up and smooths it out. A diagram done in blue marker, crudely illustrating the Blue Team chain of command. _Church_ is crossed out, replaced with _Agent Washingtub._ No Carolina, she notices.

Chain of command.

A fucking secretary.

Everyone who was a part of the inescapably corrupt government they stood against—they’re all dead now. All but the ones who fled early—and actually, now that she thinks about it, she has to wonder how many of those ships made it out of the system.

She thinks about what Carolina told her, about the mercs’ offer of safe passage off the planet.

Probably none of them, actually.

Kimball goes to the entryway, and surveys the canyon.

The Feds in their white armor look glaringly out of place. Their camouflage is designed for snow and ice, the mountain strongholds the Feds held to be sure the rebels never spread too far from the capital. Outposts encircling the developed land, to keep the New Republic from escaping into the uncharted wilderness. At least, that’s what they believed.

Armonia was supposed to be a Fed-controlled fortress, and all this time it was all but deserted.

And now it’s gone.

Kimball ducks back into the shadows and leans against the wall, face in her hands.

The Feds are all so young. She hasn’t had a lot of time to actually spend with the troops, hasn’t had much time to see it in between butting heads with Doyle, but they’re all _so _young. Like her own troops, even. They’re not bureaucrats or AMAC execs or hardened military veterans. They’re kids who should be in college, or high school.

Like her troops.

The Federal government doesn’t even _exist._ Just a bunch of angry kids and scared paper-pushes who inherited the cause from someone higher-up, and kept fighting because—

_They_ _’ll never stop, General, they won’t stop until you’re all dead, seriously, what don’t you get about that? _

Because they were led to believe they had no other choice.

What does it matter, that she can see that now? She broke the truce. She reopened the divide. She let Doyle die. The Feds have no leader, no one they can trust, no one to uphold their tenuous alliance with the New Republic.

She wants to break down. She wants _so_ badly to just fall apart. Collapse in the back of Blue Base, close her eyes and wait for it all to be over.

She thinks of _Chorus still needs you, Miss Kimball__—_ God, the fucking asshole couldn’t even use her rank if it was the last thing he did. She thinks of Carolina’s hand on her shoulder, Carolina dragging her onto the Pelican. Carolina saying her name.

_What do you fight for?_

She knows. She’s always known. Doyle didn’t. Maybe that was his problem.

But in the end—well, she guesses he found it. He must have.

If he could do that, then she can do this.

Vanessa Kimball takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders and marches up the ramp.

"You sure this'll work?" Tucker says.

Carolina is not sure. It's been a long time since she felt certain of anything, frankly. She's not sure it will work. She's sure they have to try.

"Felix will have to activate the purge personally," Epsilon says. "Which means Locus will be with him."

"And since they know our target's the comm temple," Wash adds, "it's safe to assume that's where they'll send their men."

"Wash and I take defense," Carolina says, "while the rest of you go on offense."

"Just pretend it's a good ol' game of Capture the Flag!" says Epsilon.

Grif snorts. "You know we're terrible at Capture the Flag, right?"

Under the circumstances, this is probably best case scenario for how a strategy session could be expected to go.

"So," Simmons says, "assuming that this all plays out the way we hope it will, we _still_ need to take over a heavily fortified alien tower. Anybody else seeing a problem here?"

"We emptied the armory as best we could," Sarge says grudgingly, "but we ain't exactly armed to the teeth."

Doc raises a hand. "It's also worth mentioning that half of our army still hates the other half of our army."

"Then let me talk to them."

Vanessa.

Carolina can't help feeling a rush of relief, even as Church's reticence mingles with her own, and they exchange a glance, before Carolina replies, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Kimball holds her gaze. "I am."

_I don't know about this,_ Epsilon mutters in her head.

I do.

_Seriously?_

Seriously, Church. I have faith in her.

_I sure hope you're right._

Kimball steps out into public view. Sets her radio to broadcast on all New Republic and Federal Army channels. Turns on her speaker. Takes a deep breath.

"Excuse me."

All eyes turn to her. No one takes a shot. She decides to be grateful for that. Small victories. No backing down now.

"If I could have your attention, please."

She can see, and hear, some grumbling on the ground. To be expected. It's pointless to be upset about it. Strange. A moment ago, she was steeling herself, feeling her blood rise, and now—an uncanny calm is settling over her.

"I know many of you probably don't care for what I have to say," Kimball begins, "but it's something that needs to be said."

She hasn't even planned what she's going to say. Not exactly. She's riding on a feeling. Something she's been mulling over since they landed.

Something that needs to be said.

She takes a deep breath.

"I never believed this truce would last."

Murmurs rise. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Tucker visibly flinch, Wash's stance go tense.

Good. She's got everyone's attention now.

"When you spend every day fighting a war," Kimball continues, "you learn to demonize your attackers. To you, they're evil, they're sub-human. Because if they weren't, then what would that make you?"

There are few nods in the crowd, from both sides. A lot more just staring up at her, visors impassive.

Breathe. "What I'm trying to say—is I've been afraid to see you for what you really are." Breathe. "You're our brothers. Our sisters. And the things we've done to one another are unforgivable. But General Doyle was able to see past that. In the end, he understood that now isn't the time for pride or anger—now is the time for unity.

"Every day I ask myself," Kimball says, feeling more and more like she's in a dream. Whether it's the kind where you can fly, or the kind where you're standing in front of your platoon naked, that much she isn't sure. "_What do you fight for?_ And every day I answer: _For a better tomorrow."_

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Carolina's gaze fixed on her, unflinching.

"Well, if we can’t set aside our past and start trusting one another, there won’t _be_ a tomorrow. So _please_," Kimball says, a choking feeling rising in her throat, and this is it, this is the moment where she sinks or swims—the way they win, or die. "Fight with me. Fight to see Malcolm Hargrove locked away for the rest of his life. Fight to wipe that _stupid_ grin off of Felix’s face! Fight because you deserve _to fucking win!"_

She doesn't have a chance to say anything more.

Her words are drowned in a roar of whoops, hollers, and cheers.

"Oh, thank god," Wash mutters under his breath.

"She did it," Tucker says. "I mean. I totally knew she could."

"Yeah," Carolina says, feeling an unbeatable swell of pride in her chest. That's the Vanessa Kimball she knows. The one she fell head over heels for practically from day one. "I did, too."

"Believe it or not," Carolina says, "I think that actually _was_ the hard part."

"No question," Vanessa agrees.

Sarge gives her a nod of respect. "Not too shabby."

"Still," Wash says, "it's not gonna be easy."

"No," Kimball says. "But you're forgetting that we still have something that Charon doesn't."

"We do?" says Simmons.

Kimball nods toward Blue Base. "Strategy session. We'll make it a quick one." She gets on the command channel, speaking to the officers of both armies—of their _one_ army, she reminds herself. Their united forces. "We need all hands on deck. All vehicles loaded, fueled, and inspected."

"Strip the bases clean," Wash adds. "Take any supplies you find."

Grif shoots a glance toward Red Base. _"Any _supplies—uh, I'll be right back."

Kimball switches to the general troop channel. "All troops, report to your commanding officers for orders."

But the whole canyon is already in motion. The tense, static clusters of Federal and New Republic soldiers have broken, and everyone is already setting to work, preparing to mobilize.

"All right," Kimball says, addressing the Reds and Blues. "Let's make this quick. Tucker, you prepared to put that sword of yours to work?"

"Bow chicka bow wow! Yes, sorry, absolutely. I'm ready."

Kimball can't help smiling. "Good. Then you and your friends will be heading south."

Tucker straightens up. "The Temple of Arms!"

"Yes. The Temple of Communication will be Charon's last stronghold, and with that weapons cache, we'll have a leg up on them at last."

"We can take that tower," Epsilon says. "Send a message for help."

"Long way south, though," Tucker says. "We're gonna need to fly. Charon could see us and follow us."

"We have to take that risk. Time already isn't on our side here."

Tucker barely hesitates before giving her an affirmative nod. "Then let's do it."

"Wash and I should head out immediately," Carolina says firmly. "The mercs will be heading for the Temple of the Purge, and we have the best shot at stopping them if we can beat them there."

Kimball nods. "Do you want backup?"

We can handle it, Carolina almost says. It's still hard not to hear that as doubt. As the suggestion that she and Wash are no match for Locus and Felix. She knows damn well Vanessa doesn't mean that.

"Yes and no," she says instead. "I think it's better if we go to the Purge Temple alone. Wash and I can hold the mercs off long enough for you to take the Communication Temple and broadcast a message. But that might not be enough. We don't know how long it could be before help arrives."

Kimball nods. "We need to kill them."

"Killing the mercenaries would be nice," Carolina says wryly. "And would make _all_ of us very happy. But that's still not enough. Hargrove can find other mercenaries. We need to destroy that temple so that it can _never_ be used again."

Vanessa cocks her head. "What do you have in mind?"

"Can you spare a small team for a side mission?"

"If it ruins Felix's day," Vanessa says dryly, "I will send you all the troops you need."

"Good," Carolina says, "because I have a hunch. We should send a scout ahead of the team, but if I'm right? We might just be able to take Crash Site Alpha after all."

"Crash Site Alpha," Kimball repeats, and Carolina hears it register. "The tractor beam."

"The Temple of Gravitation, yes. Charon has a ship in orbit."

"Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"If you think I'm suggesting we crash their ship straight into the Purge Temple, then yes."

"You never cease to surprise me," Kimball says. "And I love it. Let's do it. I have just the team in mind."

"Excellent." Carolina faces her, takes a step closer. "Wash and I need to head out. No time to waste."

Vanessa nods. "I'd tell you to be careful but…"

Carolina nods. "Yeah."

She rests a hand on Vanessa's shoulder. Just for a moment. It says enough.

"I'll see you at the Communication Temple," Carolina says.

Vanessa smiles. "You better."

She watches as Carolina and Wash head down the ramp and board their Pelican. Through the window, she can see Carolina climb into the pilot seat, Wash taking the copilot, and for a moment, she doesn't allow herself to think about what will happen in the next few hours.

For a moment, she lets this be enough.

The Temple of the Purge isn't far. They're bearing almost dead west from Crash Site Bravo. There's some southern-pushing crosswind as they pass over the sea, but nothing like the downdraft the mercs will be pushing against moving northwest from Armonia. It was a long flight to Bravo, nearly twice the distance to New Republic HQ, but Carolina's glad they decided put down there. Ground vehicles and underfueled birds would've been able to make it to the old mining chasm, or the research complex in the south, or other closer outposts, while most of the birds with the mileage for it made it to Bravo. This puts them a lot close to their destination than their enemies, and they need that advantage right now.

The Temple of the Purge is remotely located—or centrally, depending how you look at it. On the map given to them at the Temple of Trials, it's placed near center, on an island west of Chorus's largest continent. Inaccessible except by air, Kimball had noted, due to the treacherous cliffs rising up on all sides. With its tower as inscrutable and inaccessible as the rest, Chorus's local government had largely ignored the island, focusing their resources on less expensive ventures inland.

With so little known about the island's interior, they'll have to figure out a landing strategy when they have visual. Sensor readings, Carolina already knows from the Temple of the Key, can't be counted on.

All that matters is that they get there first, and hold the mercs off long enough to buy the army the time they need.

"I wondered when you would return," intones a red Sangheili hologram.

Kimball stares. "And this must be… Santa."

"Hey man," Tucker says. "'Sup. I don't mean to be rude, but we're in kind of a rush here. Can you open this place up for us? And like, activate those weapons and stuff?"

Santa's red hologram flickers. "I cannot, Lavernius Tucker… but there is one among you who can."

"What are you talking about?" Kimball says, confused, but Tucker and Sarge are already looking at Caboose.

"Oh," Caboose says. "Hello! Hello, Santa! Do you have presents for us? Can we open them now?"

Santa makes a considering noise. "You do not wield the great Key of my people. However, you have proven yourself a true warrior." He looks from Caboose to Tucker and back to Caboose. "Do the two of you stand together?"

"Hell yeah," Tucker said.

"Yes," Caboose said. "We are friends."

"Then I can allow you to activate the Temple of Arms," Santa says solemnly. "Please step forward together."

Tucker grabs Caboose's hand, and draws his sword.

Kimball has seen a lot of things in the past week, things beyond her wildest imagination. But this—the impossible feat no scientist, no colonist could unlock—a blinding light shooting up the tower, lighting up every crevice of its magnificent floating structure—

This takes her breath away.

Tucker nudges her, breaking her from her reverie. "Temple's open!"

The temple's weapon cache is breathtaking in its own right. Just to think how long this technology has sat here, undiscovered, ready to function at the turn of a key. There are plasma and other energy weapons of all shapes and sizes, every model they've ever pulled from the ground and a good few Kimball has never seen before. Vehicles too, ground and air, all alien shapes and colors.

The advantage they need.

The Reds and Blues are busily loading up the Pelicans. Kimball walks forward, almost reverently, a little overwhelmed by the options. She'll just take one for herself—

That one.

A little heavier than her usual choices, but the weight and balance of the black plasma cannon is satisfying in her hands. And she can't lie—it's the kind of weapon Felix would've coveted. There is that.

Mostly, though, it's just the sense of power it gives her.

"Whoa," Tucker says, sizing up her selection. "Nice."

"Pack it in!" Kimball calls, finding her command voice. "We've got another long flight ahead of us. Let's go!"

They can move quickly by air, but they still have a several-hours-long flight to rendezvous with the ground vehicles heading for the Comm Temple. Then they must touch down, distribute the equipment quickly, and move in for their assault. They won't have the element of surprise—not with their arrival at any rate, as the remaining Charon forces will certainly be expecting them. What they won't be expecting—gods, she hopes—is the secret cache of alien tech.

And Kimball intends to have some fun with that.

"Hey, yeah," Simmons says, sounding extremely satisfied. "About that! Looks like it's going to be a shorter trip than expected."

"What do you—" Kimball stops short, as Captain Simmons gestures triumphantly to an entire crate stuffed with teleportation grenades.

She pings Marri on the command channel. "Major General, we're going to be able to rendezvous ahead of schedule. Send me your coordinates. We'll meet you there."

Marri laughs. "Do I even want to know?"

"For once," Kimball says, "it's good news."

"Sending coordinates," Marri says, their voice lighter than Kimball's heard in years. "See you soon, General."

Kimball grins. "Sooner than you think."

Twilight is already creeping west as they rendezvous with the army and distribute weapons and vehicles among the platoons. It will be dark at the Temple of Communication by the time they arrive, and even with the Charon troops expecting the assault, they will have the cover of darkness on their side.

There is, she cannot deny, a strange sense of _deja vu._ The certainty of Crash Site Alpha and the crushing failure are still far too close, too real.

Yet hope rises in Kimball's chest, impossibly light.

She does not look west. Not toward the chasm that was once the New Republic's home; not toward what was once Armonia, the nuclear cloud hanging in the sky. The fallout from the reactor meltdown is going to be a problem, at least in the immediate vicinity, but it's a problem they'll have time for later. It's the kind of problem she'll happily take, in exchange for having their planet back.

She stands, weapon in hand, and addresses the troops one last time. At the canon, she united them. Now, she must rally them.

"Brothers, sisters, and siblings in arms," Kimball says. "We have one chance, and this is it. For the first time, we have Charon outnumbered _and_ outgunned. Outgunned because the gifts of our planet have at last been unlocked. Outnumbered because we stand together."

There are whoops and cheers over the radio, soldiers from every platoon raising their alien weapons high—not, thankfully, firing their weapons into the air this time.

"This is our chance," Kimball forges on. "Our moment. _Our_ victory. The victory _you all_ deserve. We can win this today, my friends. We can take back our home."

And live in peace, she thinks. For the first time, she really believes it.

It has to be more than just death. It has to be something to live for. You have believe that fighting, that living, will do the world some good. A good that transcends what you, the individual, have done, and who you are.

She could tell them to stick to the plan, to remember their training—but at this point, none of them need to be told that. Training, even strategy, will take them so just so far. Beyond that, what's needed is something training alone cannot build.

"We can do this," she finishes, "_together."_

They move on the temple by moonlight.

Scouts and scans report a substantial contingent of Charon personnel. The temple is heavily guarded. But their arms, as predicted, are standard human-made projectile weapons. Which, as Simmons once pointed out, can still kill you.

But there's something to be said for the power of intimidation.

Kimball drops an orange teleportation cube at her feet, and in a dizzying flash finds herself standing in cover near the foot of the tower rising up and up into the dark sky.

Taking a deep breath, she steps out of cover.

She detects motion above. The guards have spotted her.

Kimball raises her plasma cannon and fires, and a guard atop the tower falls in a single shot.

The battle is begun.

The Charon troops open fire. Kimball's first wave roll up on command and form their line, activating a row of gleaming hardlight shields. The same kind Felix is so fond of. Have to admit, she takes a deep satisfaction in that.

Charon deploys artillery. Kimball's next wave blast the first gunner right out of his vehicle. The troops on the tower are distracted now, and radar shows movement toward the east side of the tower, where the Reds and Blues will be flanking.

"Keep moving!" Kimball calls. "Drive them back!"

It's working. Their enemies are scattered, struggling to hold off the attack from both sides. The boom and bright flash of a plasma explosion on the east side tells her the Reds and Blues are making the most of their new tank.

As she moves into cover and takes aim, picking off pirates on the upper levels one by one, she thinks, wildly, fleetingly: We're going to win this thing.

"Okay," Wash grunts, getting to his feet. "Let's _never_ do that again."

Carolina blinks, reaching up to rub the dust away from her visor. She's dropped prone to the ground, after the bubble shield fell, protecting her head from falling debris. Her leg is throbbing, and Dr. Grey is no doubt going to scold her for that later, but she's been good, actually—in all their protracted battle with the mercenaries, she didn't use the speed unit once.

And no head trauma. She _definitely_ deserves some credit for that one.

"Epsilon," she says shakily, surveying the smoking wreckage of the Purge Temple, "we did it."

There's a moment she's afraid he's not going to respond. But Church is there, flickering to life in front of her, his presence warm and satisfied in her mind.

"Yeah, well," he says, "we always had a knack for breaking things. C'mon." His hologram vanishes. "Let's get back to Kimball and the others. I'm sure they miss us already."

"Right," Carolina says.

She nods to Wash, and they run for their Pelican.

"Well," Wash says, as she brings them down just north of the Communication Temple, "that looks promising."

"No kidding," Carolina says, using the zoom on her helmet as they disembark. Between radar and visual, she can make out that most of the Charon soldiers on the upper levels are dead. Kimball and the Reds are advancing on the tower entrance.

"This is good," Wash says. "This is—wow, they're really doing it."

Carolina grins inside her helmet. "You didn't doubt them, did you?"

"Not for a minute."

"Hey! You guys made it!"

Tucker leaps off the back of the big purple tank and comes running. Caboose is in the driver's seat, happily firing on the lower level of the tower.

"What's the status here?" Carolina says.

"Hang on, Simmons is calling me." Tucker cocks his head for a moment, then nods in the direction of the temple. "They're about to breach the line! Caboose! We're about to go inside!"

"I AM HELPING," Caboose bellows, firing another white-hot burst of plasma at the tower's western entrance, catching a few unfortunate pirates who were attempting to retreat.

"He'll be fine," Tucker says breezily. "C'mon, let's go!"

"Keep pushing!" Kimball calls. They've made it to the threshold of the tower. Most of the remaining Charon troops are on the lowest few levels now, trying to hold their line. They're still under heavy fire, but so close. If they can just break the ground level defense, they'll be inside, and they'll have the pirates on the run.

Victory. _Help_ from offworld. So close she can almost taste it.

The pirates are falling back now, their ranks too thin to hold the line. Marri lays down covering fire while Kimball gives the signal to advance, with Sarge and the Reds at her side.

"Okay Tucker, we're in," Simmons calls over the radio. Tucker and Caboose have been cleaning house on the north side of the tower, armed with the alien tank. "Can you make it to our position?"

"Hell yeah!" Tucker responds triumphantly. "I got my own private escort."

"What?" Simmons says. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," comes a familiar and self-satisfied voice.

Kimball turns, and wonders if she's ever seen a more beautiful sight.

"Carolina!" Vanessa calls, and she sounds so _happy_ it pulls at Carolina's chest a little. Or a lot. "Wash! You made it!"

"Sorry we're late," Wash says wryly. "Blowing up a death machine takes longer than you'd think."

"Well," Carolina says with satisfaction, "we _did_ manage to kill two mercs with one stone."

"Aw dude," Grif says, "did they go out like bitches? Or was it slow and painful?"

Vanessa goes oddly quiet for a moment. It's hard to read her stance. She must be happy, Carolina thinks. Of course she's glad. But she knows, too, how strange it can feel when your greatest and most personal enemy is finally gone. Sometimes… it's not as satisfying as you think it's going to be.

Vanessa probably would've liked to take out Felix herself. Carolina would get that. But things had to be this way. It couldn't really be helped.

The others are still whooping it up over the mercs' demise, and maybe Epsilon feels Carolina's unease because he interrupts impatiently, "Yeah yeah, may they burn in hell. We still need to get Tucker to the tower controls. There's a teleporter down the hall that'll take us to the Control Room. Once we broadcast our message, Charon will have no reason left to fight."

Carolina nods. "Then let's push our way to the teleporter—"

"Run away! Run away!"

She turns in the direction of a bellowing Caboose, now on foot, tearing toward them with Donut on his heels. There's a heavy _thud_ in the near distance, and sounds of shouting.

_Oh my god, what now?_

"What are you guys _doing?"_ Simmons yells.

"And what killed your ride?" Tucker adds.

Over the radio, a voice shouts, "All squads, get to cover! Get to cover—" The transmission is cut off by a cry of pain, and then goes dead. Silently, automatically, Kimball catalogs her name.

A Mantis.

Where did it even _come _from? They didn't detect any mechs on sensors, no one _saw_ it. Kimball is certain there was no such thing at the tower when they arrived.

Carolina turns to Tucker. "Take Epsilon. Broadcast his message and end this. Wash and I can deal with the Mantis while Kimball and her men hold this position."

The rest is drowned out by the report of her rifle, but as Kimball opens fire she sees, out of the corner of her eye, the brilliant colors of the Reds and Blues rushing for the teleporter.

"Take cover and hold position!" Kimball bellows into the radio. "All squads except Aqua, focus on finishing off the Charon stragglers. Aqua, you're with me and the Freelancers on the Mantis. Concentrate fire on the shield generator! If you can get within range to hit it with an E.M.P., do it! Otherwise, stay in cover and stay low. Let's get this thing."

They're so close, she thinks, firing a burst on the rocket launcher as the shield generator is out of her reach from this angle. So close. Just hold out a little longer.

Tucker will make it. They'll send the message. Even if Kimball dies today, the war will be won. Chorus will be free. It will all be worth it. She will not have fought for nothing.

An aqua suit of armor ducks into cover beside her, armed with two bright blue alien weapons, one in each hand.

"Hey there," Carolina says, firing a concentrated burst of plasma into the Mantis's cannons, which glow red with the heat of the plasma and then jam. "Room for one more?"

"Be my guest," Kimball says, taking the opportunity to reload. Carolina dual-wields with practiced ease, firing in alternating bursts, letting one weapon vent while the other fires—to maintain continual fire without overheating, probably, though Kimball has little experience with that particular kind of firearm. Until a few days ago, she'd never seen an alien weapon that actually worked.

It occurs to her that this is the first time she and Carolina have fought side-by-side on the battlefield. Fought side-by-side at all.

She thinks she likes it.

"God, I love these things," Carolina says with obvious satisfaction. "One of my favorite loadouts back in Freelancer."

"Reloading!" Vanessa slaps another magazine into her battle rifle. "You had alien weapons in Freelancer?"

"Lifted them on one of our missions. Target was a high-level asset we were told was being held by Innies. Vault had Covie tech coming out the ears." Carolina snorts. " Turns out they weren't Innies at all. We were stealing from Charon Industries."

Seeing an opening, Kimball pulls a pulse grenade off her belt, pulls the pin and chucks it toward the Mantis's feet. "I wouldn't feel too bad about that one."

"I don't," Carolina says grimly. The grenade detonates, and the Mantis staggers, freezes, engulfed for a moment in a bubble of static. Carolina takes the opportunity to fire on its shield generator. "What I feel bad about is all the poor UNSC saps subcontracted to guard Hargrove's assets that we took out along the way."

Vanessa grimaces. "I'd ask if that's even legal, but I know what martial law looks like."

"Yep." A rocket detonates close by and they both duck, feeling the ground shake. Carolina curses under her breath, pops up and fires off a burst into the Mantis's launcher. "The soldier who came for me on the mountain. That's who he was. One of the survivors."

Vanessa would love to ask more questions, and Carolina is being… surprisingly forthcoming, considering they're in the middle of a firefight. But there will be time for that later. There will be. Because they're going to fucking win this thing.

"By the way," Carolina says. "My name's Mallory."

Kimball blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"My name. My real name. It's Mallory. Mallory Allison-Church."

"I," Kimball says. "Thank you?"

"Not the best time for it, admittedly," Carolina says, popping out of cover for a moment to take a shot. "But I wanted you to know."

"Wash!" Tucker's voice comes over the radio. "Locus and Felix are alive! They're _here!"_

"What?" says Wash.

_"What?"_ Carolina hisses, and Kimball feels her stomach sink.

The Purge is gone. They can't use the Purge. That's what matters. And their forces are devastated. If they think they can still win—

"We need help!" Tucker whispers urgently.

The Mantis turns on Wash, charging its cannon, and Wash curses and runs for a better cover spot. "Tucker, I hate to say it, but you're on your own."

"But—"

"I believe in you," Wash says earnestly. "All of you. You can do this."

"Damn it," Carolina mutters. "It's _almost_ down. I'm going to move in close and take it out." She glances at Kimball, pauses as if struck by a sudden realization. "I mean. Permission to—"

Kimball almost laughs out loud. "You know, I can't really outrank you if you don't have a rank."

Carolina snorts. "I'm a special operative. _Ex-_special operative. And before that, I was a Captain in the Marine Corps. You're a General. Pretty sure you still outrank me on the battlefield."

Kimball smiles to herself. "Permission granted, soldier."

Carolina gives her a satisfied nod and calls over the radio, "Wash, can you lay down some cover fire?"

"Roger that," Wash returns.

Carolina vaults out of cover, and her armor color shifts to a dark gunmetal gray, blending in with the surrounding rocky landscape in the early morning dark. Guess that's one armor mod she can run without Epsilon. Even without the speed unit, she covers the distance impressively fast, the adaptive camo holding until she's almost directly beneath the Mantis, which remains focused on Wash and Kimball's fire. With an impossibly graceful leap, Carolina leaps onto the mech from behind, finds a foothold for her good leg and delivers several solid punches to the mech's power core, her force amps caving in the metal shielding.

She hops off, leaving the Mantis motionless and smoking.

Kimball exhales a breath of sheer admiration and murmurs under her breath, "That's my girl."

There are shouts from the troops close to the tower, soldier looking up. Kimball can't see what they're looking at, at first, even as she emerges cautiously from cover. The tower looks just the same, reaching high into a sky just barely lightening to blue in the east.

Then she spots it.

Something falling. Falling fast. All the way from the top.

Something orange and black.

No one moves toward it. Kimball's breath catches in her throat.

Felix hits the ground with a gruesome sound, shattering the back of his helmet and breastplate on impact. He lies there, twitching slightly. You wouldn't hear it if he groaned, not through the helmet. But he might still be alive.

Kimball walks to him slowly, deliberately, until she is standing just over him. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Carolina—keeping close, but slightly back.

Felix's helmet twitches up a fraction of an inch, as though trying to lift his head.

It's funny, she never really thought she'd be the one to kill him. And left to it, he'll likely die of his wounds anyway. Not that she hasn't wanted to be the one to do it—and though she once held to the philosophical ideal that one should never _enjoy_ violence, even when necessary, it's a difficult ideal to maintain when your every waking moment is spent fighting, training, or thinking about fighting.

It's not pleasure, so much. It's not even really peace. Peace is knowing the Purge can never be used against her people again. Peace will be knowing that her planet is truly free.

But she can't deny there is some… satisfaction.

"I'll make it quick for you," Kimball says quietly, drawing her sidearm and aiming it with a steady hand at Felix's visor. "We were friends, after all."

Epsilon's message reaches every helmet on the battlefield.

The few pirates left are still taking potshots from the east side, but they're under heavy fire from the Chorus troops and not landing many of them. Kimball can't help but pause a moment, looking up in awe as the top of the tower glows with a burst of white light.

Cheers erupt from all over the field as Church's message goes out, and even the pirates cease firing for a moment, no doubt checking in for orders with whatever semblance of command they have left.

"They actually did it," Carolina says softly.

"Never doubted them for a second," Wash says with obvious fondness.

"General," Marri says over the radio, "You seeing this?"

She is seeing it. A disruption in the slipstream in orbit over Chorus. So quickly. How is it possible—?

"I can't believe it," she says. "We're picking up a slipspace rupture. A ship's already on its way!"

A dark shape emerges in orbit, visible against the brightening dawn. But something's wrong, even before the voice comes, broadcasting on all channels—the voice she's never heard before in her life but which nonetheless makes her blood run cold.

"You have made a terrible mistake."

The second Mantis strikes the ground with a deafening sound. Then the third, and the fourth—and all around the temple, the thunder of mechs landing from orbital drop.

"No, _no,"_ Kimball cries wildly, and Carolina feels a wave of all but blinding rage, _hope_ so close and yanked away, and how _many_ times has Vanessa felt this? "What's going on?"

"It's Hargrove," Carolina says grimly. She'd know that smug voice anywhere. "The Chairman's here."

"Everyone, take cover!" Wash orders.

The troops scatter. Vanessa doesn't move. Just stands there, staring up at the sky in shock. Carolina grabs her by the arm—gently, but firmly.

"Come on," she hisses, pulling the General into cover with her. "Stay with me. I'm not losing you now."

"You just couldn't do it, could you?" the Chairman's voice booms in her ear. "You couldn't lay down and _die._ Well, if I'm going down, I'm taking you all with me!"

"Ignore him," Carolina hisses, opening fire on the nearest Mantis. "We're not going down now. Not after all this."

Vanessa swings her rifle off her back and opens fire, but doesn't answer.

It's strange to hear Epsilon over the radio and _not_ in her own had. "Carolina, are you all right?"

She grits her teeth. Wants to keep up a good face for Vanessa, but—Epsilon and their friends up top need the truth. "Church, this is bad. Hargrove's dropping mechs all around the temple. We're pinned down."

"One Mantis we can handle," Wash chimes in, "but _this_ will be a bloodbath."

"Not if we shut them all down at once. We override their controls. But in order to do that, we need to go to the source…"

"You're joking, right?" says Tucker.

There's a pause.

"Shotgun!" Grif and Simmons call in unison.

"What are they talking about?" Vanessa says. It's a relief just to hear her say something.

"Boarding the ship," Carolina says. "Shutting down the mechs. It's the only chance we've got." She ducks as rockets streak past, painfully close. "Damn it, we need to move. Any vehicles nearby?"

Vanessa seems to rally then. "Warthog on your five o'clock."

"Gunner?"

"Affirmative."

"Good. Let's get to that and lay down some strafing fire. You want to shoot or drive?"

"I'll shoot," Vanessa says quickly, then adds, "I like it when you drive."

Carolina can't smiling to herself. "Good. Let's move."

"All right," Epsilon says over the radio, "we're in."

"Good work," says Carolina, a little breathlessly, as their hog careens on two wheels around a cluster of Mantises, Kimball controlling the gunner. It works well enough for suppression, but Wash and Carolina are right. There are just too many of them. The Reds and Blues are, once again, their only hope.

She's trying, _really_ hard, to hang onto that hope.

Wash is keeping to the shadows, tossing pulse grenades and slowing the Mantises down as much as possible, and their troops have moved into the tower and are holding the line there. If there are any pirates left, they've pulled back to cover. The Mantises seem to be firing indiscriminately. Chorusan, pirate, it makes no difference.

It really makes Kimball wonder about Hargrove's plans for the mercenaries, had they completed their mission.

"Carolina, Wash," Epsilon says, "you guys just focus on staying alive, okay?"

"Already on it," Wash says, tossing a grenade. A Mantis staggers in the blast. Three more set their sights on the Warthog, and take aim.

Carolina glances over her shoulder. "Hang on tight."

"Yes, ma'am," Kimball says, and grips the gunner for dear life.

Sometimes, it _is_ nice not to be in charge.

There's a strange feeling of lightness as Carolina pulls the Warthog in wild loops and figures eights so that Kimball can strafe fire on the Mantises while staying out of theirs. Technically, she's still in command right now, but with everyone on the field just holding the line the best they can, well, there aren't a lot of orders left to give.

Everything depends on the Reds and Blues now.

She still feels the weight of their struggle, but it doesn't sit quite so heavy on her shoulders. Not with Carolina in the driver's seat, the utter confidence with which she wields a vehicle as a weapon, using space and ground and cover to their advantage. All while Vanessa manages, for a little while, to lose herself in the fight itself. Find a grounding point amid the motion. Aim, and fire.

"On your six!" Wash shouts, and Kimball wheels, swinging the gun as far as it will go, but it doesn't quite reach the Mantis bearing down on them and there are two more approaching from the front, and Vanessa swings her rifle off her back and shouts, "Carolina—"

—and before she can open fire, the Mantis stops, makes a whirring noise, and powers down.

All over the field, the sounds of battle still.

And then up go the cheers, the rifles fired into the air.

"Yeah," Carolina says breathlessly, pulling the hog to a stop, making Vanessa's head swim a little after the constant motion, "we _really_ need to talk to them about that."

Vanessa almost can't breathe, surveying the battlefield, the temple, the silent mechs scattered all around. And the dead. But even more still alive.

She finds herself gripping her rifle so tightly her hands cramp.

She hears Carolina saying her name.

"Vanessa," Carolina says. "Are you okay? Are you wounded?"

She shakes her head, finds her voice. "I'm just—I'm just waiting for the next thing."

A moment passes, and she feels Carolina's hand on her shoulder.

"I don't think there is a next thing," Carolina says. "I think we won."

Vanessa pulls her helmet off, hops down from the gunner and stares into the sky. Pale now with morning clouds, the sun up, the light filtering down through the smoke and haze. The ship in orbit is still. No taunting utterances come over the radio. No mechs, no dropships, no death falling from the sky.

Her eyes travel down the length of the tower, and back up again. On every level, she sees the bright white and buff tan of her people. If there are any Charon stragglers, they've been picked off or fled into the wilderness.

Tears are flowing freely down her face, and she gulps in the air thick with gun smoke.

_We won._

Carolina reaches for her and Vanessa falls into her embrace sobbing, shuddering helplessly and Carolina holds her tight, so tight.

She lifts her head, the world underwater, and Carolina's pulling off her helmet and kissing her fiercely, and Vanessa closes her eyes and kisses her back.

"Carolina, we need an extraction."

Epsilon. Carolina breaks the kiss at last, and snaps to attention. "Roger that. We'll fire up a Pelican and be there in a few minutes."

She nods to Kimball. "You coming?"

Even through her tears, Vanessa's dark eyes narrow. "Hargrove is aboard that ship? I wouldn't miss it."

"Then round up your Lieutenants," Carolina said. "Grab a bird. We'll meet you up there. Church, what's the status? Are we coming in hot?"

"Yeah," Epsilon says. "You could say that."

"Roger," Carolina says, and nods to Kimball, who nods the affirmative and heads off to collect a team.

"Agent Carolina. Agent Washington."

Major Stanforth stands before them, in her white and blue armor. She nods. "Got a bird just to the south. Heard you might need a lift."

The _Staff of Charon's_ manual docking bays have all been opened. Carolina figures that's a question for later. The Major is a solid pilot—she's no Niner, of course, but who is—and docks them quickly and efficiently, dropping the hatch before they touch steel. "Go. I'll keep the engine hot for you."

"Appreciated, Major." Carolina takes point, Wash close behind. Marri brings in the second bird one dock over, and Kimball and the LTs disembark, along with Dr. Grey, whose services Carolina dearly hopes won't be needed. Still, it's good to have the doctor along.

"We're in," she calls over the radio.

"Busy," is all Tucker responds. "Hurry."

"What's your 20?"

"Some kind of trophy room! I don't know—"

A familiar voice trills in Carolina's helmet. "I believe I can assist you with that!"

_"FILSS?"_ Carolina gasps. "How—is that really you? How are you here?"

"I believe that is best explained at a later time," FILSS replies cheerfully. "For now, you will see I have marked the fastest route to Hargrove's trophy room on your HUD. I do know how you hate to be late, Agent Carolina!"

Carolina winces. "You're a lifesaver as always, FILSS."

The route is clear. _Entirely_ clear. They move fast, encountering no resistance at all, and that in itself makes Carolina uneasy. Either the ship is minimally staffed—unlikely—or Hargrove is throwing _everything_ he has at the Reds and Blues.

But by the time they reach the trophy room, the battle is already over.

"_Jesus,"_ Carolina says, stepping over bodies clustered in the threshold, but she doesn't get much further than that. There are a _lot _of bodies. A few guards still breathing but incapacitated. Just as well. No reason to kill more of the lackeys than necessary.

They step inside, and a lot of things happen at once.

"Tucker," Wash says, his voice slightly strained, "what—are you _wearing?"_

But for Carolina, her voice is just gone. For a moment she can't breathe, like all of the air has been sucked out of the room. Even recolored, she knows that armor on sight.

She'd know him anywhere.

Kimball sees the hitch in Carolina's gait like _deja vu,_ like a dream—as though for a moment Carolina freezes while everything else continues in motion around her. She freezes with the same sudden jerk Kimball remembers from the mess hall, that day weeks ago. (She can't remember what happened or why. There was a fight that day, but there was always a fight.) And she knows this is a question that will have to wait for later.

Tucker takes off the strange gold-domed helmet. It's the same old Captain Tucker underneath it, his brown eyes bright with the thrill of victory. "It's just me, guys. We did it!"

Wash and Carolina are still staring at Tucker like he's wearing the skin of an alien.

"Doctor coming through!" Dr. Grey announces brightly. "Now, who's injured?" She makes a beeline for Sarge, who mutters, "Ah, it's just a scratch," though he seems to be bleeding substantially.

"Is everyone okay?" Kimball says. "Where's Hargrove?"

"Hiding on the bridge," Sarge grunts. "Like a _coward. _What say we go finish him off?"

Kimball shoulders her rifle, draws her sidearm, and nods to her Lieutenants. "You all worry about getting yourselves patched up. Leave Hargrove to us."

The ship's AI—Carolina called her _Phyllis__—_leads them to bridge. What civilian crew they encounter quickly surrender, and they make quick work of the few guards. Hargrove must have assumed no one else would board, and thrown everything he had at the Reds and Blues.

"Opening Bridge access," chirps the AI.

"For god's sake, do _not_ open that door, Phyllis."

"Command overridden," says Phyllis cheerfully, and the door slides open.

A couple of terrified-looking Ensigns immediately put both hands in the air. Kimball nods to Matthews and Palomo. "Secure them."

Pistol drawn, she approaches the ugly bald white man fixing her with a look of sheer hatred and disgust.

"So," Kimball says, keeping her pistol trained on the man. "You're Malcolm Hargrove. I can't say it's a pleasure, but I have been wanting to face the man who tried to destroy my entire world."

Hargrove sniffs. "You colonists were doing a fine job of it on your own. I merely… _accelerated_ the process."

Kimball laughs coldly. "You know that's not true. We were meeting for peace talks _years_ ago. Was it Locus who fired the shot? That seems like his style. No, it doesn't really matter. You knew we would have made peace, without your interference. You had to make certain we would never trust each other again. That negotiations would never again be an option. You didn't 'accelerate' the war, you extended it far beyond its natural life. Millions died. They say after a certain point, the human mind can't conceptualize the scale of large numbers anymore. But you must have some concept of what that means. It's only a fraction of your net worth, after all."

Hargrove makes an irritated noise. "If you're going to kill me, you backworld vermin, you may as well have at it. You'll have no satisfaction telling me your troubles."

The Lieutenants are watching her. The Ensigns too.

"I'm not going to kill you."

"Oh my," Hargrove says sarcastically. "_Mercy._ How big of you."

Kimball shakes her head. "It's not mercy. I'm simply taking control of the narrative, for once. I can see the headlines now, _Philanthropist billionaire murdered by outerworld extremists. _With your means I'm sure you have some sort of media contingency in place in the event of your untimely death. Even with the evidence against you out in the open now—I have some experience with the relationship between government and corporations, _Chairman._ I know how that goes. This isn't going to be your story. Blowing your head off would feel good, I won't deny that. But that's not how this ends. You're going to know public disgrace, Hargrove. You're going to know ruin. You're going to answer to the _world_ for what you've done. And I and my people—we're going to watch."

Hargrove snorts. "You people will be at each other's throats again in no time."

"I used to think that too," Kimball says. "Not anymore."

She nods to her Lieutenants. "Secure him. Take him to the Pelican." She casts a look around the bridge. "Nice ship. I'm sure Chorus can find a good use for it."

Everyone's banged up, but more or less in one piece. That's what matters, Carolina tells herself, as Sarge takes a treatment of biofoam in his wounds with no more than a grunt. She can ask about the armor later. Though given the other… artifacts their friends have picked up from the trophy room, she suspects she already knows the answer. Grif's got his favorite alien weapon back, too, and though it still stings to look at it, she can't bring herself to rain on his parade. Or Tucker's.

That armor probably saved his life. Saved all of their lives, she thinks. Maine would appreciate that. Maine as he was—as only she and Wash remember him.

Donut's picked up a second pistol, and though it's impossible to tell at a distance—it's just a standard-issue Magnum, after all—she has a cold feeling in her stomach that she knows where that pistol's traveled from, too.

Lock it down for now. Don't ruin their moment.

"Hey Church," she says. "Ready to hop back on board?"

She waits for the blue hologram to appear, and it strikes her then—even before the resounding silence—that Church hasn't said anything yet, hasn't appeared to celebrate their victory with the rest.

"Tucker," she says. "Where's Church?"

Tucker freezes. There's a long moment of silence, before he says, bewildered, "I don't know."

Back on the ground, the messages download from Tucker's helmet to each of theirs in turn.

There is the message to all of them, explaining what happened and why he did it. Then there are more personal messages.

Wash gets very quiet after he listens to his, and goes to comfort Caboose, who's having a lot of trouble with the whole thing.

"But… when is Church coming back?" he says, looking from Wash to Tucker to Carolina with an earnestness that makes her chest ache.

Tucker swallows and looks like he's going to answer, and then stops, and shakes his head, says, "I gotta—" and walks away without finishing.

Carolina has one too.

She can't hear it in front of the others. Not now. Not yet.

Kimball comes to her as soon as they disembark, puts her hand on Carolina's shoulder, says, "I know you're probably not ready to talk. But I'm here if you need me. Okay?"

She manages a nod. She feels guilty for not saying more. For not saying _Thank you._ She can't even get that much out. She just feels—numb.

They lock up Hargrove in the research base near the Temple of Communication. It's a solid structure, good locks, not that Kimball thinks Hargrove is going to mount an escape. Without his muscle in the form of military and hired guns, the old man doesn't look like he'll be worth much in a fight.

They put a guard rotation on him just in case, three at a time, just a few hours per shift. Nobody wants to be left out of the celebration for long. The base is just near enough that the sounds of the festivities carry over the rocky rise of the land and through the concrete walls.

Kimball hopes he hears every note of it. She hopes he'll never sleep soundly another minute in his miserable life, this night or any other.

The troops are making camp in and around the temple, laying tarps and pitching tents, rolling out bedrolls, and breaking out rations. They're here, after all, and it's as good a place as any to settle in for a few days, as they wait for word from outside. Defensible too, should any of the Charon stragglers get any bright ideas, though Kimball can't imagine any of them being that stupid.

The truth is… they don't _have_ a base of operations anymore. Armonia is gone. There's the old New Republic Headquarters of course, but that's not neutral ground. Same with the old Federal Army bases in the mountains to the northeast. There's Crash Site Bravo to the northwest. And there are other cities, long-abandoned, including one not far from here. That might be worth considering, for the future.

For now, they make camp.

For now, they celebrate.

It's the first time Carolina's actually gone up the tower.

As tall as it looks from the ground, it feels even higher up top. The teleporter whisks her to the Control Room level in the blink of an eye, and when she walks to the edge and looks over, she sees clouds below her. The air up here is cool, clear, and fresh, and well-enough oxygenated she takes her helmet off and takes a deep breath.

"Agent."

Carolina almost jumps out of her skin. Kimball's Major General turns from where they've been leaning on the railing, looking startlingly apologetic. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"I didn't know anyone was up here," Carolina says. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Marri says, and cracks a smile. "I don't own the tower."

Carolina doesn't know how to respond, so she just nods, and says, "Hell of a view from up here."

"It is." Marri looks away, then looks back at her. "I'm—I heard about your—friend. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," Carolina says, and thinks about how to politely extricate herself, when Marri speaks again.

“Kimball told me what you did. In the city.”

Carolina’s so exhausted she has to rack her brain to figure out what “in the city” means, trying to think of what she might have done that would’ve pissed off Marri—before she realizes Marri isn’t pissed off.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You wouldn’t let her sacrifice herself.”

“She never could’ve gotten to the reactor in time.”

Marri shrugs, eyeing her with a piercing gaze that says they know it was more than that. “Still.”

Would she have let Kimball do it? If they’d been close enough, if Vanessa had had better odds than Doyle? She wouldn’t have, and she knows it. If it came down to that, she’d have done it herself.

"She was right about you," Marri says, turning to look out. Through gaps in the clouds, people can be seen moving down below, and the sound of music drifts up to where they stand. "Trusting you. None of us would be here right now without you, Carolina. You and your friends. We're forever in your debt."

Carolina shakes her head. "It's not a debt. We're not mercenaries."

Marri smiles. "Friends, then. You'll always be friends of Chorus."

Carolina manages a smile. "Yeah. Friends."

Marri makes a graceful exit and leaves Carolina alone on the tower. This is what she was after to begin with, being alone. But she stands leaning on the railing a few more minutes, looking down through the clouds at the festivities below.

She has to listen to that message at some point.

But a part of her doesn't want to.

_If you don't say goodbye,_ her mother used to say when she was little and crying about her mom's latest deployment orders, _you aren't really gone. You're just not here right now._ Probably what's got her so hung up. If she never listens to Epsilon's final goodbye—

then he might not be gone. He could pop up in her peripheral vision any time with a _Hey, sis _and things would be normal again.

Except it's bullshit. It's always been bullshit.

Not saying goodbye didn't keep her mom around, and her dad refusing to accept that she was dead didn't bring her back—and he sure tried. Spent two years calling anyone who would listen and yelling at them that there'd been a mistake, that if there wasn't a body she couldn't be _dead._

He didn't understand, didn't _want_ to understand how few bodies were actually left, in space. What Covenant plasma did to ships, and to the people inside them. There was never going to be a body.

Her grandparents convinced him to hold a memorial service when she was eight, and for the next four years she thought that was the year her mother actually died.

Carolina selects the file from her HUD, and plays it.

_Hey, sis._

_Look_ _—don't be mad, okay?_

She laughs hoarsely.

_And don't blame yourself. No matter what happens. _ _Seriously. I know how you get with that. Don_ _’t fucking do that._

It's been years since she was able to cry. She must have cried for her mom during those two years, just from missing her, though the memories from that young are hazy now. She didn't cry when she was twelve and found the letter with the wrong date in her dad's desk and figured out when her mother actually died. She didn't cry when her father blew up at her for snooping in his office, when he shouted at her and she screamed back with a fury she couldn't name. Because he lied, she told herself at the time. Now, she thinks that anger ran from a deeper source. Not just the lies but the cold silences of that house, the father who could barely look her in the eye, who locked himself in his study and forgot to make dinner—forgot that he wasn't the only one in that house who lost her.

After that, well. You don't cry at military school. Or at least, you sure as hell don't let anyone see you do it.

And after a while you forget how. She couldn't cry for Maine, or for any of the others, and what good would it have done anyway? People don't come back because you break down. One way or another, you're carrying that loss, that pain, like knots in a string. Like the spur of a broken bone that heals, but rough, with jagged edges you feel when you move. You just feel that sometimes. You just carry it, knotted up in your bones.

You carry it into your fists when you fight and your feet when you run. It fuels you, pushes you forward to the next target, the next mission, the next fight.

Her hands are shaking, her head is empty, Hargrove is captured and the fight is over. Whatever the next mission is, it's out of her sight and beyond her reach and there is no one to fight for Epsilon, nowhere to channel her pain into anger.

They won, and he's gone, and right now Carolina would kill for someone, _anyone _to fight, just to put off feeling this for one more day. God, how selfish is that? They _won,_ Chorus is free, and all she can think about is her own stupid pain, how she sent him off without her and if she'd just _been _there, if _she'd _been the one in Maine's armor, maybe he wouldn't have had to—

_Seriously. I know how you get with that. Don't fucking do that._

The movement far below her blurs, but not from clouds.

Church's voice plays in her helmet, and the silence in her head cracks open.

In the safety and silence of the tower, Carolina plays the message back on repeat and sobs until her stomach hurts, until she's hiccuping from gulping in air too fast.

With nothing else to wipe her face, she drags her gloves from forehead to chin and they come away wet and snotty. God, crying is gross. No wonder she never does this. Why would you _want _this.

Except she does feel a little bit—not better, really, but something. Calmer. Less knotted up. Church is still gone. There's still a gaping hole in her head and a hollow feeling in her chest and she still wants to fight something, but she can keep breathing without it, for right now.

The clouds have shifted to obscure the ground beneath her and Carolina finds herself wondering, suddenly, where Vanessa is.

She helmets up before descending, covering up the obvious tells that she's been crying like a fucking kid. As she crosses the camp, she wonders if she should have bothered. She's sure not the only on the ground who's been crying. Soldiers clustered around campfires, arms around each other, hugging, singing, drinking, crying and laughing and switching fluidly between the two. Guess that's what this kind of victory looks like.

Her eyes scan the pockets of song breaking out across the campground, and it takes a moment to remember who she's unconsciously looking for. There is no sign of the girl with the pink hair, the one who played her guitar at the old New Republic base. Carolina didn't know her, not by name. But her absence is a sobering reminder. A lot of people aren't here to celebrate.

She has a sense of it already from that last battle with the Mantis but now, at long last, Carolina has a moment to stop, pull up the rosters, and look at who Aqua Squad lost at Alpha.

Spencer. Morel. Nguyen. Crane.

Four of her twelve.

There is a note on Private Nguyen's name, that she gave her life to buy another squad time to get to safety. Nguyen was a New Republic soldier. The note is signed by Specialist Corbin.

She'll remember their names. Find some way to honor them.

The bold solid colors of the Reds and Blues stand out in the crowd. Grif and Simmons sit close together, surrounded by Chorus soldiers—members of their platoons, and others in white armor as well. Grif is telling some story, gesturing wildly while Simmons chimes in with embellishments. Caboose is having a very earnest conversation with Lieutenant Andersmith, while Major Stanforth looks on in what appears to be mystified but curious attention. Donut is chattering eagerly with Jensen and her pink-armored girlfriend. And at a campfire near the base of the tower, she spies Wash and Tucker sitting close together amid a thoroughly mixed group of soldiers. Wash has his helmet off, talking, even laughing, his hand very casually entwined with Tucker's.

Vanessa is sitting with Marri and a cluster of high-ranking officers, Federal and New Republic in about equal numbers. They look like they're having a lively conversation and Carolina thinks maybe she should go take a walk and let them finish, but Vanessa is up as soon as she lays eyes on Carolina, excusing herself from the conversation and crossing the distance between them.

Carolina has her helmet on. Marri said they saw her up top of the tower, earlier. Vanessa thought about going up, but talked herself out of it. Carolina's grieving, and as much as Vanessa aches to be the one she leans on, if ever Carolina needs her space it's now.

But when she approaches the circle of officers, her visor turning toward Vanessa in the crowd, she's out of her seat in an instant. "Excuse me," she murmurs, making her way across the campground to meet Carolina.

"Hey," she says. "How are you doing?"

Carolina lets out a hoarse laugh. "Honestly? I have no idea." She looks around the camp for a moment, as if sizing something up in her mind, and then looks back at Vanessa. "You want to go for a drive?"

She likes the way Carolina drives, on the battlefield and off. Fast, bold, and confident. She likes speed, Vanessa thinks, remembering the bumpy ride to Armonia from the old base, how she’d arrived with her face caked in dust and her hair a mess, and she’d never wanted it to end—nothing but wide open space, and speed, and wind, and Carolina’s laugh.

She won’t try to fill the silence. She will let Carolina speak first.

Carolina keeps a more moderate speed now, winding between the rocky outcroppings on the outskirts of the battlefield, the sounds of celebration in camp falling behind them. She grips the wheel at exactly two o’clock and ten, and her posture suggests she’s holding herself back a bit. But her driving is still confident, even though her eyes are red, her face lined with exhaustion.

"Sorry to take you away from the celebration," she says as they get rolling faster, out into the flatter terrain beyond the temple. Vanessa has no idea where Carolina plans to drive, and the nice thing is, it doesn't particularly matter.

"It's okay," she says, sitting back in the passenger seat, feeling the wind on her face, the fresh late afternoon air. "It's… honestly, it's hard to be completely in that frame of mind. We've lost so many people just in the past few days. I can't help thinking of all the people who didn't get to see this victory."

"Yeah," Carolina says, a look of understanding crossing her face.

Vanessa hesitates a second before adding, "It's fine if you don't want to talk about it. If you just want to drive."

Carolina takes a deep breath, and for a moment Vanessa feels that grip of fear in her stomach that she might have misstepped again. But then Carolina says, "No, I—I do, actually, I think. I'm just—figuring out where to start, is all." She flexes her grip on the wheel, inhales deeply again as they lean into a turn. "I want you to know me, Vanessa. I want you to know why—I just. It's going to be hard to get out."

Vanessa nods. "Okay. I'll try not to interrupt."

Carolina cracks a wry smile. "You can interrupt."

Vanessa laughs gently. "What I mean is, I'm listening."

Carolina takes a deep breath, and Vanessa can feel her summoning something from deep within her—some courage, perhaps, to face something far worse than battle.

She waits.

"The armor was Maine's," Carolina says, tightly, visibly struggling to get the words out. "What Tucker was wearing. It was Maine's armor."

"Agent Maine… that's the Freelancer who became the Meta, right?"

"He was more than that."

Vanessa winces. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"No, no, it's okay," Carolina says quickly. "You didn't know—" Her voice goes lower, rougher. "I mean, he was more than that to _me."_

"Oh," Vanessa says, and then a moment later, _"Oh."_

"Yeah."

"I'm so sorry," Vanessa says, and a few things fall into place right then. Carolina freezing in the mess hall, the way she stopped dead when she saw Tucker—that all tracks now. But of course it does. Even if she didn't know—of course Carolina would have known the Freelancer who became the Meta. Of course he would have been more than that to her. She could've guessed that. Not the whole story, but that much.

"There's more," Carolina says, swallowing. "It was—it was my fault, what happened to him. I gave him the AI that was meant for me. Sigma." Her voice is on the edge of breaking, but she keeps on, keeps driving, her eyes dead ahead. "He was wounded on a mission. Badly. I thought—I thought I could help him, but that wasn't the whole reason. I didn't think I _needed_ an AI. I didn't _want_ to need one. If I was going to be number one, it had to be _me._ Me alone, or it didn't—I don't know, it didn't _count_ or something. I know it sounds stupid. But to be their leader—they had to believe in me. They had to know I was strong enough, with or without some _enhancement."_

"It doesn't sound stupid," Vanessa says quietly.

Carolina swallows. "I really did think it would help him."

"I believe you."

"And I was wrong." Carolina's grip tightens on the wheel. "I was wrong, and that happened to him and I didn't see what was happening until it was too late because I didn't talk to him and I didn't fucking ask and that happened to him and he's dead and I don't even _know_ what Sigma did to him, what happened—in his mind, I—I don't know if he _suffered_, or—" Carolina's voice breaks. "The Reds and Blues, they—they don't know. To them, he was just an enemy they defeated. They had to, I—I don't blame them. It was my fault. I gave him Sigma, and it was _my job_ to make sure he was okay, and I didn't. He's dead because I didn't talk to him." She exhales harshly. "So you're right, you know. That is important."

Vanessa doesn't have anything to say, so she keeps quiet.

"I know how he died," Carolina says hoarsely. "Because it almost happened to me. The same cliff. Except I didn't die. I survived, and he didn't, even though it should have been me. And then it happened all over again, and I still didn't die, and I'm gonna be honest, Vanessa, I don't know why. I don't know _why_ I keep failing the people I love and yet I still get to keep walking when _so many others__—"_

Carolina has been slowly accelerating the whole time, and brakes now, rather abruptly, pulling off to the side of the vague dirt path they've been following. After a moment, Vanessa reaches, hesitantly, for her hand. To her relief, Carolina doesn't pull away.

"I don't—sleep very well," Carolina confesses. "That's why I haven't been sleeping in your bed. I didn't want you to keep you awake."

Vanessa gently curls her fingers around Carolina's, and Carolina closes her hand in turn.

“Thank you for telling me,” Vanessa says after a minute of silence.

“I don’t really talk about him,” Carolina says quietly. “Not even to—Church.”

“So you don’t… think about it?”

“As much as I can avoid it when he’s—when he was online, no. He knew I’d shut him down if he went there.”

“So he knew.”

"He knew. Wash knows. He and Maine were friends."

“I can understand why you don’t talk about it.” Vanessa hesitates, then adds, “I’m sorry, if I—”

“I wanted to tell you,” Carolina says quickly, cutting her off. “I swear, I did. It’s just. Hard. It’s really hard.”

"It's okay," Vanessa says. "It's okay."

They sit there for a while, and they hold hands, and neither of them speak.

Something connects Vanessa just then. "Your name is Church. Allison-Church. You told me on the battlefield."

Carolina nods. "Allison was my mother's name. Bethany Allison."

"And Epsilon was also Church."

"Yup."

"And the director of Project Freelancer…"

"Was my father." Carolina nods, her jaw tensing. "Yes."

"That's," Vanessa says. "Well."

"Yeah," Carolina says. "That's about the size of it." Her gaze drops, and she lets out a long breath. "He was a civilian scientist. Not military. He told us we were going to be the key to ending the war, and I believed him. We all did, I think. At least at the beginning. But at the end of the day, all of us, we were just—experiments to him." She adds with no small trace of bitterness, "Even me."

She looks up, staring off into the horizon, and Vanessa keeps quiet.

"I saw them all," Carolina says, finally. "At the Temple of Trials. That's what it showed me. All of my squad—dying all over again. And then all of you."

"All of…"

"The Reds and Blues. Wash." Carolina visibly swallows, and her eyes finally turn toward Kimball. "And you, Vanessa. And then when we realized Alpha was an ambush—I realized I might lose you. That _Chorus_ might lose you, and even if we were over, I couldn't—I couldn't let that happen. In Armonia either. Maybe that was selfish, but I wasn't about to let you die. Even if it was over between us. Doyle was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about one thing. Chorus still needs you."

Kimball goes quiet for a moment, trying to wrap her brain around that. Even now, it's hard to even imagine what's next. To think about life after the war.

"I never thought I would see peace," she says aloud. "Not really."

Carolina nods. "You said that, in your speech."

Vanessa shakes her head. "No, but more than that… I didn't really think I'd live to see it. Even if it happened."

Carolina's eyes regard her searchingly. "Oh."

"I watched three generals die before me," Vanessa says, turning her gaze to the horizon, the mountains in the distance with their now-empty Federal bases. The planet which once felt so small, now seems vast and empty. "I never expected to be the last. Just the next in line."

Carolina exhales slowly. She's still looking at Vanessa with those piercing bright eyes, studying her with a thoughtfulness that's hard to read. "You really don't see it, do you? How _amazing _you are."

Vanessa opens her mouth and closes it again.

"You think most people could accomplish what you have? You think most people would rise to the position you were pushed into?" Carolina lets out a little laugh. "People with _years_ of training for leadership don't have your gifts, Vanessa. _I_ don't have your gifts. I could never have done what you've done. With the New Republic, with the truce, with the united army."

Vanessa shakes her head. “You see accomplishments? Because most of the time, all I can see are failures. All I see are lives lost—and for what? So I could make nice with the very people who took them? Who ruined our world, who destroyed our lives and our homes? Who sold us out to corporations, who said they were _doing it for our own good_ while they left the poor to starve and the sick to die?” She holds up a hand. "I know—these aren't those same people. I see that now. But look how long it took me to get here. Look how I almost—Carolina, I've made _so_ many mistakes. I _trusted Felix_. I sent people to their deaths based on lies and bad intel. That's on me. It's always going to be."

Carolina is quiet for a moment. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you, Vanessa? I see the bravest woman I’ve ever known.” She looks down. Swallows. Looks back up. “I told you about my teammate, Connie—Agent Connecticut.”

“You told me about her, in the hospital.”

“Yeah.”

“Is she—one of the ones you saw?” Vanessa asks carefully. “At the Temple?”

Carolina nods. “I don’t think I told you this part, but I… saw her die. In real life, I mean. Well, I saw the killing blow. I saw—I knew she couldn’t make it. It was too deep, there was too much blood—” She shudders for a moment, before collecting herself. “She was the bravest one of _all_ of us. She was the only one to not only see that something wasn’t right, but do something about it. Before it was too late.” Carolina’s eyes drop again. “Only it was, for her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was never a coward,” Carolina says.

“I never doubted that.”

“No, I mean—I just mean I’ve put my life on the line plenty times, but I—it was for the wrong things. I didn’t know what I was fighting for. You _do_, Vanessa. You’ve always known.”

“You thought you did,” Vanessa says. “You _thought_ you were fighting for the right thing. Ending the war, saving humanity—how could you have thought that was wrong? You can’t hold yourself accountable for what you _didn__’t know,_ Carolina.”

Carolina meets her eyes with a gentle yet piercing look. “Neither can you.”

Vanessa swallows. “Walked right into that one, didn’t I.”

Carolina smiles. “Lil bit.” She looks Vanessa in the eye, and her expression turns serious again. “Look, Vanessa, I…" She runs her left hand through her hair, speaks haltingly, but her voice is stronger now. "I care about you in a way I haven't cared about anyone in… a long time. And that’s been…" She lets out a desperate kind of laugh. "Amazing. And _so_ scary. I don’t have any idea how to do this right, I'll be honest. I didn’t mean to shut you out. I just… wanted to enjoy things the way they were. Not complicate it. Figured there’d be time for that stuff later, after we were done fighting.”

Vanessa nods.

“But that’s not what you need. I get it. You need somebody who can be open with you, and I… I want to be that person, Vanessa. I really do."

"I was never sure there would be time," Vanessa says. "When I said I never expected to see peace… I meant it. Even during the truce. With Charon still after us… I figured my number would come up, sooner or later. I wanted to enjoy things too, I just…" She takes a deep breath. How to explain this?

“You are so much larger than life. Not just to me, to everyone—you're legends around here, you and Wash and your friends. Everyone knows you and no one knows you, and in some ways… I felt like I didn’t _really_ know you any better than anyone else here. I am an open book, Carolina. Everyone knows who I am, where I come from, and what I believe in—for better or for worse. My past is an open wound for everyone to see and I can’t change that even if I want to.” Vanessa swallows. "I just… wanted to feel like I knew you. In the time we had."

Carolina nods.

“I was terrified when I heard you were missing," Vanessa confesses. "And I knew I shouldn’t be. I know how capable you are. But all I could think was that you needed backup, and you didn’t get it. And I couldn’t stand the thought of you being gone, just like that. Before I had a chance to tell you how I feel.”

There's a warmth in Carolina's eyes when she looks at her again. "I don’t know if I'll always be able to keep up with you." She squeezes Vanessa's hand. “But I’ll try. I’ll really try. And if you don’t mind waiting up for me sometimes, then I’m in. I’m in if you are.”

Vanessa will never be sure, looking back, who leaned across the center console of the Warthog first. She will only remember Carolina kissing her with that familiar ferocity, that fire and heat and it sparks something so deep in Vanessa because god, she loves that. Feels it burn in deep, all the way down to her bones, as she kisses her back with everything she's got.

“I’m in,” she murmurs against Carolina’s lips, when they slow down long enough to breathe. “I’m all in.”

Carolina thinks she could stay in this hog, kissing Vanessa Kimball, with the sun low in the sky, forever. If only that was how time worked.

But they do have some time, now.

The sun sinks in the west as she pauses to unhook her breastplate, snap off her greaves and the rest of her armor plating, and leave her boots sitting beneath the wheel as she swings herself over the center console to straddle Vanessa's thighs in the passenger seat. Even without the cover of the coming dark, they are far enough from the Communication Temple to be unseen and unheard.

She takes her time, though, getting them out of their undersuits. Kissing and touching above the waist, peeling off one sleeve and then the other, running her hands through Vanessa's hair as she smears kisses along her jaw.

"You sure you're up for this right now?" Vanessa murmurs.

"Somebody once told me you don't celebrate in armor," Carolina says, winking. But she pauses all the same. "How about you? You sure about this?"

Vanessa leans forward to kiss her, cupping Carolina's face in her hand. "I've never been more sure of anything."

It's nice, taking things slow. Straddling Vanessa's thighs with a hand tucked between her legs and two fingers inside her, thumb circling her clit in gentle strokes while her other hand braces against the back of the seat to hold herself steady. Vanessa, meanwhile, has one hand on Carolina's breast playing with her nipple, and between that and the way she's moaning at Carolina's touch has her soaking wet already.

So when Vanessa asks, breathlessly, "Can I—" Carolina doesn't object, only shifts so Vanessa can slide two fingers along her aching clit, making her shudder.

It's harder to stay focused, being touched at the same time, but Carolina curls her fingers deliberately, making Vanessa arch her back and moan louder, and god she loves making her feel good. _This_ she knows how to do. This she's good at.

The rest of it—well, she'll get there.

There will be time.

She doesn't even fight it when Vanessa makes her come first, working fingertips inside her and palm against her clit too perfectly for Carolina to resist. Still trembling with aftershocks she draws her fingers free, and with a wicked smirk sinks to her knees on the Warthog floor, pulling Vanessa's hips forward in the seat.

The sounds the General of the New Republic makes with Carolina's mouth between her legs are the best victory music she could ask her.

It doesn't make her forget. You never do. The silence in her head is forever. No one will be coming back online some hours later to rag on her about her extracurricular activities—or to deliver what she will grudgingly admit, later, might be good advice.

There will never be anyone like Epsilon.

But there is also no one like Vanessa Kimball. Not on this planet, and not in the whole galaxy.

"Mallory," Vanessa says, trying it out, stroking Carolina's hair back where it's tickling her neck.

"Mmm," Carolina returns, nestled against her naked in the passenger seat. "You know, that sounds pretty good when you say it."

They are both a mess. Naked, sticky, with rumpled hair. Kimball sure hopes there are showers inside the research base. Either way, even back in armor, no one is going to have trouble guessing what she and her Freelancer got up to on their little drive.

She can't say she minds. After all—they are _together, _aren't they? It's not a secret. It doesn't have to be.

Carolina smiles against her collarbone. "We did good work today." She blinks, her eyelashes fluttering against Vanessa's skin. "I think it's still today. I have no idea what time it is."

"We did," Vanessa agrees, stroking her fingers lightly along Carolina hip where her hand lies, holding her close. "We make a pretty good team, when you come down to it."

"Like to keep working together."

"I'd like that too." Vanessa nods. "Going to be a lot of work to be done around here. We have a whole society to rebuild."

"Politics isn't my strong suit," Carolina says. "But you know I'm here to lend a hand, wherever I'm needed."

"So," Vanessa says, carefully, because this is something else they haven't really talked about, "you think you'll all be sticking around Chorus for the time being?"

"Don't think the others are eager to leave." Carolina hums and snuggles tighter. "I know I'm not."

Vanessa doesn't even bother to fight to smile that breaks across her face. "That mean I can convince you to sleep in my bed tonight?"

"You don't have a bed."

Vanessa laughs. "Fair point."

"There's Hargrove to deal with," Carolina adds. "We have to make sure he's brought to justice."

Vanessa nods. "Things won't be easy. We're united right now, while everyone's high on victory. It won't be quite so easy, once we get into the weeds of it."

"It never is," Carolina agrees. "But it's a chance at a fresh start. For Chorus. For all of us."

"Fresh start," Vanessa echoes. "I like that."

They're both quiet for a few minutes, just holding each other. The moon is up, nearly half full, bright and waxing in the sky.

"We'll figure it out," she says.

"We will," Carolina says. "We have time."

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Bethany Allison-Church" is inspired by a headcanon from [QueSeraAwesome](http://archiveofourown.org/users/queseraawesome).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


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